The reasons why Quant Network (QNT) will rise to the Top of the crypto sphere in the coming months 22 min readThis post intends to discuss the merits of holding Quant Networks utility token (ticker name: QNT). A good asset is one that is able to both attract and retain value, and I will explain the reasons why I believe Quant is in a unique position to perform strongly on both metrics.Whilst I will refer to the fundamentals of the project for obvious reasons, further details can be found in a highly informative and well structured written by our Community Member Seq. This 8-part series is a highly recommended read, also to better understand the fundamentals of Quant Network and the QNT token which underpin the case I will make today.In order to make this post on point in as few words as possible, I have structured it in the form of a Top 10 reasons why, also including an Introduction to remind ourselves of the Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) landscape when it comes to usage and adoption as of today.Introduction DLTs are tamper-resistent, immutable, decentralised databases that eliminate the need for a central authority or intermediary to process, validate or authenticate transactions. Blockchains are a subset of DLTs, and record transactions and data in sequential blocks.Now, 10 years since the creation of the first blockchain (Bitcoin), one can wonder: what successful applications are in use today? Regrettably for a large part of the crypto sphere, after years and years of existence, blockchain adoption is still very limited. Ironically, the competition for dApp platforms has become increasingly intense over time, yet the highest ranked dApps only bring in thousands of unique users a day. Statistics often speak by themselves, and here is a screenshot taken from on 1st July 2019:This pretty dire global dApp landscape can be explained by a number of factors, but the blame cannot forever be put on the blockchain scaling debate. It is very difficult to work from the ground up and grow a user base when you are not an established player, with brand value, capabilities, resources, and marketing power which go way beyond what any unknown, often small, developer team can achieve.The primary value add of DLT technology is to minimise friction and bring back trust in the way information, data, and value is exchanged between people and machines across the globe. Current dApps tend to mimic apps from Apple or Google App stores and tack on a blockchain. However, DLT use cases identified by Enterprises tend to be far more wider-ranging e.g. from Central Bank Digital Currencies, to Sovereign Identity and Trade Finance solutions.Away from the retail side, global Enterprises such as Banks, Insurance companies, Corporates, and even Public Sector entities have primarily been working with permissioned (i.e. where access has to be granted) DLT technologies such as Hyperledger Fabric, Corda or JPM Quorum in order to optimise or re-invent their business models. To illustrate the point, here is a chart of the DLT systems used by the , which represent 50 of the largest companies in the world that have started to use DLT technology as selected by Forbes:Through this brief set of illustrations, we can already conclude that:A) Plenty of the largest companies in the world, across industries, are using or experimenting with DLT technology already.B) A single application, from a single of these companies, would likely encompass more traffic from day 1 than any of the dApps on offer today.C) A plurality of systems is being used , and this is likely to expand further as new, improved technologies continue to appear and new consortiums are being formed (dedicated DLTs will likely be created for dedicated industries and/or governments in the future, with certain features and risk profiles adapted to their use case and requirements).The ecosystem is therefore definitely growing, primarily in the Enterprise and Public sector sphere, and this is happening on platforms which, for the most part, do not utilise a token for transaction costs! That makes it quite frustrating for the crypto community, since most opportunities in the crypto sphere are for platforms which are not seeing any meaningful sign of adoption. Also, when it comes to crypto currencies in their purest sense, its arguably only Bitcoin that is seeing meaningful adoption signs so this market segment is not a game changer either as of today.Whilst additional ingredients are needed (and theyre definitely coming) for the ecosystem to flourish, such as a clear Regulatory Framework and further support from Public Authorities (embracing the technology and adapting laws accordingly), there is a strong focus on two other aspects in the Enterprise world: interoperability and standards. Without that, mass adoption of DLT technology is simply NOT going to happen as isolated networks struggle to reach their true potential on their own.This is where Quant Network comes in, and solves these problems in a unique, exciting, and elegant way.Reason #1: Quant Network have solved universal DLT interoperability at scale They have, properly, and this is huge.Quant Network have created an Operating System called Overledger that enables the connection of any isolated networks together, at internet scale and simultaneously. It is not another blockchain. Such networks can be any type of DLTs (including blockchains or DAGs), but also existing database, CRM systems, IoT devices, Zapier, etc.Overledger offers an ANY-to-ANY connection without the need for an additional blockchain in the middle. That is a key feature which enables smooth, interoperable communication between the various systems without the need to run additional consensus, nodes or open up Enterprise networks to thousands of incoming connections required by peer-to-peer networks to the outside world. Overledger has been up and running since September 2018, and a number of DLTs have been connected already such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Hyperledger Fabric, Corda, IOTA, JPM Quorum, EOS, and Stellar. It has also been announced that Binance chain is in the pipeline.They are all connected via a single API , which gives developers access to all these DLTs with 3 lines of codes in less than 8 minutes. That is without being required to change any existing infrastructure. Plug and play, basically, and of course more DLT connectors are coming as required by Enterprise clients or as created by the Community since the connectors are open source.In addition, they have built the ability to write smart contracts across a wide variety of chains including those that dont support them such as Bitcoin. They also offer their customers to build mApps as opposed to dApps, that are similar to dApps but operate over multiple chains at the same time as certain components of the application may need the different features of the different technologies enabling for much higher flexibility and resilience. Applications built on Overledger can also switch chains as necessary (e.g. for costs reasons), or write smart contracts on platforms that dont support them natively. This is revolutionary .Let this sink in for a moment and put yourself in the shoes of a large Bank, Stock Exchange, Insurance Company, Corporate or Government entity that has intended to try and use DLT technology in the last year. Do you think Enterprises would risk being locked into a single DLT technology in such a changing market, or that they went for the Operating System that gives them access to all DLTs in a highly resilient, cost effective, and flexible manner? Overledger has been designed from the ground up to fit Enterprise needs, and there are reasons to believe they have absolutely loved it.Importantly, the QNT token is needed to access the Overledger platform (i.e. for both users and developers), to encrypt and sign each and every transaction flowing through it, to move Digital Assets (e.g. bank stablecoins) across chains and it will also be involved in the Gateway set up that is expected during the second half of H2. The token utility function is therefore universal and this is a crucial piece of the puzzle for obvious reasons. In addition, 14.6m QNT tokens have been minted and released, and QNT has no inflation (i.e. 14.6m is all there ever will be).dApps vs. Overledger mApps illustration:Summary table:Reason #2: Quant Network are unique, patented and embraced As mentioned, a good asset has to attract and retain value.Bitcoin has demonstrated that it is able to attract value as a Store of Value, and whether it can retain it over time is a notion that is still challenged. Adoption is the key driver here, and it is going in an OK-ish direction so far.Smart contract platforms have a bigger issue. Competition is a lot more fierce and theirforkability may prevent them to retain value over time. Network effects do help, but any prohibitive cost to use a platform can be met by a fork by its users at anytime. Also, as the technology progresses, and DLTs are able to offer hundreds of thousands of TPS in the coming years, what will be the value of a token that represents a share of the network? Facebook, the most used application in the world, requires 50k TPS so lets reflect on that. Finally, interoperability will spread usage across many different chains and it is therefore unlikely that all transactions concentrate in a handful of them. I strongly recommend reading for further discussion around those topics.Quant Network can attract value because it solves a hair on fire problem in the DLT space, that is for these networks to be able to communicate with each other in a universal way (i.e. atomic swaps are just one use case) and it solves it in a brilliant and unique way as we have seen earlier. What if Tesla cars operate on one chain and BMW cars on another, and they have to tell each other quasi-instantly and securely what theyre doing? What if JPMs coin, running on JPM Quorum, has to be transferred to another bank? What if identity has to be ported across chains so that border controls can understand each other? What if a smart contract has to listen to an event on another chain to be triggered? What if regulators have to monitor activity across chains and need an access to all of them at the same time? DLTs without interoperability miss a crucial piece of the puzzle, as there will not be one type of technology that fits all needs and requirements. You can also hear about the importance of interoperability in the introduction video .Quant Network can also retain value because:A) It is the ONLY company that has been able to solve universal interoperability at scale with any and all systems (incl. future ones) as of today, bringing a massive first mover advantage to them whilst DLTs Proofs of Concept and implementations are booming.B) The core of the technology is protected by 4 different patents , hence trying to match their achievement will need someone to find a way to do the same thing differently (whilst theyre the only ones that have found a proper way to interoperate so far) and combat Quants first mover advantage.C) Overledger has been white-labelled by 3 Global Corporates already (information given in a Telegram AMA, in March 2019), and hence it is being embraced and marketed by global power houses across the globe as opposed to being fought, and this is a crucial point for the establishment of a standard.Quant Network are establishing themselves as the true Layer 0 of DLTs. This is where value can concentrate , based on the technology and standard (more details in the next section) and it is tremendously exciting as Quant Network could capture a significant share of the real DLT activity. Also, in my opinion, it is likely that a single player embraced by large, global technology companies establishes itself as the standard in the field as opposed to having multiple solutions that are all different and messy similar to what TCP/IP was for the Internet.This is how such Layer 0 looks like:Reason #3: Quant Network are establishing themselves as the standard for the movement of Digital Assets across chains The CEO and Co-founder of Quant Network, Gilbert Verdian, is the creator of the worldwide - founded in 2015. There are now 53 countries cooperating on this set of standards, with a view to enable mass adoption of the technology on a global scale.Gilbert also now chairs the Interoperability workshop within ISO TC307, and hence helps define what interoperability looks like at the governance, business and technical levels. It is to be noted that the standard was created based on the initial Overledger concept. Listen to what Gilbert is saying about Quant Network being the standard for interoperability .Were working on being the financial infrastructure to move digital assets between networks. Theres a lot of activity in this space by banks. Were making QNT the way to sign, encrypt and secure digital assets to move them between banks. Making it a Universal Utility Token. Can you imagine QNT moving JPMorgan Coin to another bank? Or Facebooks Libra coin? All of these need interoperability to transfer between parties. Were making that a reality. (Gilbert Verdian, 10th June 2019).In addition to their unique technology, the team has an impressively wide network of Enterprise and Government connections especially Gilbert. Gilbert used to be responsible for Cyber security at very large entities such as Mastercard, HSBC, HM Treasury or Australias Ministry of Health amongst others and he has held positions in three different governments (UK, US and Australia). Feel free to take a look at Gilberts outstanding CV ; you can also find more detailed information about the team in .Reason #4: Quant Network have started to unveil amazing partners and clients Partners? There are plenty, here is the latest update on the official Quant Network website. They range from the largest car manufacturers consortium on DLTs (), to Payment infrastructure (), Government cloud service providers ( Cloud) and Amazons , Business facilitators (), Universities (, ), Cyber Security initiatives (), etc.The teams ambitions are clearly global as demonstrated by their partners and reach. In this respect, as Quant Network prepare their expansion on-site in the US with their large partners and clients, it has been announced that Guy Dietrich, Managing Director of , has joined the board of Quant Network to support the companys expansion into the US (see announcement ). Also, Gilbert recently stated that more people of a similar level will be joining Quant Network (you can listen to his own words ).I would like to focus your attention on. As we saw earlier, Hyperledger (Fabric) is the second most used Enterprise DLT (as per the Forbes 50 analysis). Hyperledger is a large Open Source project that is supported by the largest tech companies in the world and that is extensively used in the Enterprise market. As part of its suite, exists Hyperledger Quilt which aims at providing interoperability services. So far, Quilt has primarily been based on the Interledger Protocol (ILP) from Ripple and it offers limited settlement-related interoperability via Atomic Swaps. However, it has now been announced that Overledgers SDKs will be integrated into Quilt and offer universal interoperability for Quilt users going forward. This is huge , as a blessing for the technology and a sign that all Hyperledger users will be able to use Overledger for their interoperability needs going forward. That is what adoption looks like. Overledger is going to enable universal interoperability for Quilt. The past approach to interoperability was quite limited to ILP between Ripple and BTC and was a very specific use case. Were integrating Overledgers API and SDK to be the front gateways for Quilt to allow for Enterprise and Developers to be able to use different blockchains, protocols, taxonomies with ease to bring mass adoption and universal interoperability. This allows Overledger to widely support all the different use cases demanded by clients, enterprise and developers and bring mass usage of Overledger and Quilt to a broader market. (Gilbert Verdian, 29th April 2019)Clients? We have had a few exciting ones such as , or , and the first very large one was announced in early June and it is the biggest partnership with anything crypto related you will have ever heard of. Quant Network have partnered with European leading FinTech company to integrate the SIAchain infrastructure into Overledger for 570 banks , to develop and implement DLT based applications spanning different technologies. The cooperation aims to re-architect the financial system in Europe, and potentially elsewhere. In 2018, SIA managed 14 billion institutional services transactions, 7.2 billion card transactions, 3 billion payments, 51.7 billion financial transactions, and carried 1,204 terabytes of data on the network. Ripple and others have tried to secure deals with this magnitude of banks for years. This is what can be achieved when you build a technology from the ground up that is designed for Enterprises. .This is a massive testimony of the faith financial institutions have in Overledger being a secure, scalable, well-suited solution to the challenge they are facing regarding the upgrade of their (old) systems. The idea is to remain competitive versus the likes of Libra and other crypto payment solutions that will surface in the coming years. Interestingly, another news was published shortly thereafter:. This is a massive 10-year concession from the ECB, which Quant Network will directly benefit from.There are plenty of other initiatives related to middleware products built on Overledger, to broaden the scope of products and services offered to Overledger users, such as those related to cross-jurisdiction Open Banking (see the Atlas mApp details ), or what is coming on the Health front:Were also going to establish a new Consortium in Healthcare to create a new ecosystem. Its going to be global and we are at the core of this. Something like MOBI for health but bigger. Look out for more on this! (Gilbert Verdian, 25th March 2019)See Reason #10 for further discussions around clients and partners, with an interesting perspective for those looking to indeed become QNT holders.Reason #5: Overledger is future-proof Since Overledger can connect to ANY isolated network, it will also connect the next generations of blockchains together and follow the technological advancements of the industry over time.This brings a major benefit to their clients, and to the QNT holders too. It becomes much easier to be sustainable over the longer term than for anyone to have to pick one platform and hope for it to stay relevant in an ever evolving market. The risk profile of holding QNT is much more interesting from that perspective.Reason #6: QNT is a unique opportunity to gain exposure to Enterprise DLT activity As we have seen before, Enterprises are actively experimenting with various types of DLT technologies and a lot of these systems do not offer the opportunity to get exposure to them (at least directly) since they do not even have a token. On the other hand, this is where most of the traffic is going to happen since these Enterprises and Government bodies will de facto have millions of potential users for their deployment.The QNT token can be used as a proxy to this activity, across chains, including for the movement of Digital Assets between them, and this provides a precious opportunity to get exposure to the market segment that is actually seeing DLT adoption.Furthermore, think about what this could mean for institutional money involvement. Some of the largest institutions are only now dipping a toe into cryptowith the likes of Bitcoin or Ethereum. How do you see them react to a token that has the profile of QNT? A technology that many will be embracing themselves for their own business, that is agnostic to the industrys next developments, adopted by global technology power houses, based on standards, and seeing strong signs of adoption. QNTs profile may well be seen as much more acceptable than any other crypto asset by such institutional accounts.Reason #7: The decentralisation of Overledger is spot on Decentralisation. A concept much talked about in recent years, especially considering the myriads of blockchains that have emerged with a number of different consensus configurations. There have been countless articles about what it really means or should look like, which I will not discuss here.What I wish to relay is that Overledger does NOT affect, in any way, the decentralisation of the underlying chains. Overledger cannot read, affect, or interfere with the traffic as the QNT token is used to encrypt the transactions on the client side before they even reach Overledger. The level of decentralisation therefore equals that of the underlying chains used by the developers. In addition, gateways (more details to follow in H2 2019) will be put in place to maximise the decentralisation of Overledger across the globe and provide the shortest possible path to anyone transacting via Overledger regardless of their geographical location.Quant Network are however present as a company to add features and constantly keep the system up to date with the various industries requirements. This means that there is someone to call should any issue arise. Indeed, Enterprise DLT technology has nothing to do with 100% decentralisation a-la Bitcoin. CEOs, CFOs, CISOs, need to have a point of contact to discuss the systems on which their IT and/or commercial activity run through. In fact, regulators would prevent them to use a system decentralised to the point it is out of anyones control. This makes Overledgers decentralisation balance absolutely spot on, and this should be praised because it is vital for Enterprise/Public Sector adoption .Reason #8: The ultimate ambition is to be the Network of all Networks Quant Networks ambition is to re-architect the internet and put it on blockchain, to create a Network of Distributed Networks that also links with existing/legacy systems (which is a must for adoption). Not less than that. This would bring a dramatic change to the Internet as we know it, and make it hyper-decentralised since you could decentralise the web and its applications on multiple blockchains at the same time.The team has also demonstrated serving websites (HTML) directly from blockchain (remember they can write on all connected chains and move code as required) during their QuantX event in 2018 that marked the start of the Internet of Trust as you can see. Also, since everything is portable thanks to Overledger, you could imagine QuantIPs being assigned to Overledger users from which connections between the Internet as we know it and DLTs could flow.As a side note, the idea is clearly to be to the DLT sector what TCP/IP was for the Internet in the 80s. Except that, this time, you could actually hold a piece of it! This brings an interesting idea: if you could buy a piece of access to the new internet, that everyone on the planet is using, wouldnt you see it as a Store of Value? Wouldnt you like to store wealth with a technology-agnostic, future proof, globally adopted technology on which most of the digitalised value is flowing through? QNT has 18 decimals behind it. Food for thoughts.Finally, I recommend you familiarise yourself with which states that bad money drives out good. For example, if there are two forms of commodity money in circulation, which are accepted by law as having similar face value, the more valuable commodity will gradually disappear from circulation. Even though QNT is not commodity money per se, the same principle could apply to the token in theory.Reason #9: The next Ethereum will take everyone by surprise The next Ethereum. How often have you heard this one? Well, I have seen this notion of next Ethereum everywhere on social media. Many have thought that it would be another, more advanced, more scalable, smart contract platform such as EOS, Cardano, Tron or whatever else amidst the myriad of such platforms currently available whilst the user base is still dire.The reality is that change, progress never come as people expect. This reminds me of a story. As I was learning about the history of innovation, I heard that, when people were asked a century or so ago about how their agricultural business could become more efficient, they would answer things like: We need stronger horses!. Interestingly, no one ever said We need cars, or trucks!. This pattern has been seen everywhere, across industries, and times. True change always comes in interesting ways, as you expect it the least.As mentioned, if you ask people in crypto about what will emerge next, they will often tell you they want to see a more scalable Ethereum or a more flexible one. STO platforms also attracted focus on this front, although STO activity is still dire and competition is already quite fierce. What if it was none of that, though? What if the next Ethereum was not even a blockchain, but an Operating System? What if it was the piece of the puzzle that connects them all? The hidden Layer 0", from which most of the activity goes through now, and in the future. The layer that attracts and retains the DLT value.Reason #10: The teams very structured way of conducting business provides an attractive window of opportunity So few clients only have been announced in a year or so. OK, the partnership with Sia is absolutely massive but why havent we heard even more? Why not naming all the banks one by one for a start and get all the hype?The answer is that the Quant Network team is acting according to a well defined, structured plan as they have always said. They are in no way interested by the speculation game or the when Lambo side of crypto. We are dealing with highly experienced professionals, that are acting at top management level across governments and industries, and they will entrench their position to the maximum before releasing what they have been doing with everyone in a coordinated fashion.They recently hired an experienced Marketing Director () in this respect, and plans are being drawn up as we speak including adding Tier 1 exchanges for QNT to accommodate for the Enterprise volumes thats coming exchanges that are crypto-related but also traditional exchanges (i.e. those already listing stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc.). It is to be noted that only select, high profile utility tokens are likely to be listed on such traditional exchanges in my opinion.What does that mean for a candidate holder? It means that, if you have researched enough (and Im trying to help today), you may realise that you are given a chance to hold a token (QNT) at a market cap around USD 150m for a project that is the revolutionary Mass Adoption Bringer to DLT activity. You are presented with the possibility to read between the lines and come in early at a still very low valuation , even though we know the team is in a very strong position, before further official news is released and the media picks it up more broadly.I am not trying to FOMO you needlessly, I am trying to explain that this situation is close to being unique. Had the team announced few large household bank clients in the weeks or months after Overledger was launched, the price would have shot up straight away! But now they may be working with 50, 100 or more household names already and they have only made little noise about it hence they still are in the mid to lower part of the top 100 coins on CMC. Can you see the window of opportunity I am referring to?Finally, most of the work has been targeted at Enterprises in the last year but the Community version of Overledger will get more attention in the coming months (it is currently available in Alpha) to attract Developers from around the globe. This will help broaden the awareness of Overledger in the public sphere at the same time. In addition, if the various blockchain projects wish to survive, they will need users and hence they may look to build Connectors to Overledger pretty soon to benefit from users from all connected chains. We used to have When Ledger Nano app? being thrown around all the times in crypto communities before, and I believe we will soon hear about When Overledger connector?Conclusion To conclude, I would like to share something I learnt during my post graduate studies. I learnt that, whilst doing business, we are neverupagainst clients we are up against competition. Why? Because if there was no competition, clients would have no choice but to choose us!And what ingredients do we have with Quant Network? Booming DLT use cases (look at the news!) + a hair on fire problem (the need for interoperability, standards, resilience, and flexibility for Enterprise implementation) + a solution that is so good and unique that 3 Global Corporates have white-labelled it, Hyperledger is using it to reboot its Quilt module and 570 banks are now getting it implemented in Europe to re-architect the payment infrastructure with the ECB. Interestingly, Gilbert mentioned in a previous interview with Blockchain Brad that he was FOMOing Enterprises, telling them Overledger is the only good way to implement DLT for an Enterprise today. Well, if that is confirmed, fasten your seat belt for whats coming because Overledger might have conquered a significant share of the Enterprise market already.Finally, many people look at crypto and think that most of the value is already behind them, since Bitcoin and Ethereum already did crazy multiples, and only few believe anything else can repeat such performance today. But life is surprising in many ways and history paints a different picture: Did Facebook come in the early days of the Internet? No. Uber? No. Instagram? No. AirBnB? No. And the list goes on.The DLT pandora box has been opened and it is my belief that more innovative ideas will develop over time as the technology continues to mature, especially since Overledger is bringing the much needed glue in the DLT landscape. It can actually save the many public blockchains that are lacking users by offering them as additional choice to Enterprises and making them benefit from users across chains.This is it! Thank you for taking the time to read my post. If you wish to come and discuss with our community, please feel free to join our Telegram group at As a side note, looking at the teams social media accounts such as Twitter is always interesting. Maybe you should take a look in case hints are hiding? We never know. Also, if you wished to continue to try and research the project, I suggest also looking at the conferences attended by Gilbert, and check the type and seniority of attendees is a particularly interesting example with the European Central Bank itself (26th July 2019, Frankfurt).Last but not least, since Quant Network are all about bringing technologies together, both new and existing, in the most agnostic way, we have adopted our own hashtag which is symbolic of the work achieved by the team and what the crypto sphere finally needs to see: #WeAgree .Appendix:July 2019 Blockchain Brad interview of Gilbert Verdian (CEO): February 2019 Blockchain Brad interview of Gilbert Verdian (CEO): My name is David and I spent years in the Investment Banking industry in London. I hold QNT tokens and the above views are based on my own thoughts and research only. I am not affiliated with the Quant Network team in any way. This is not investment advice, please do your own research and understand what you are buying before doing so. It is also my belief that more than 90% of all other crypto projects will fail because what matters is what is getting adopted; please do not put more money at risk than you can afford to lose.
15 Jun 2021
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