Quarkcoin is a coin which increases security by using 9 rounds of hashing from 6 different hashing algorithms - blake, bmw, grøstl, JH, keccak, skein. 3 of the hashing rounds apply a random hashing function. This compares with Bitcoin's solitary use of SHA-256 algorithm. There is no pre-mine for this coin. A new block is generated every 30 seconds and 2048 Quark is given out as reward per block at the beginning. This reward halves every 60480 blocks or roughly every 3 weeks. The initial supply of Quark is 247 million and this is expected to be mined in roughly 6 months since launch date. The supply will then continue to increase at an inflationary rate of 0.5% per year. Quarkcoin was launched on 21 July 2013.
Quantstamp is a security-auditing protocol for smart contracts. As a apps platform, Ethereum has proven its security time and again. However, apps and smart contracts on top of Ethereum may still have bugs in which malicious players can cause havoc on the network. The two most notable examples of these being the $55 million DAO hack and the $30 million Parity wallet bug. These issues not only affect the people who’ve had their funds stolen, but they also diminish the credibility of the entire ecosystem. Quantstamp is making smart contracts more secure through automated software testing and a system of bug bounties. Although starting with Ethereum, the team is building the protocol to be available on any DApp platform in the long run.In an industry where security is a primary concern and bugs have caused the theft of millions of dollars, Quantstamp should help to legitimize blockchain projects and ensure that large-scale smart contract hacks are a thing of the past. Quantstamp held a successful ICO in November 2017 in which the team raised a little over $30 million dollars. They distributed 650 million (65%) QSP out of the 1 billion total supply to ICO participants at a price of $0.072 per token. After the usual post-ICO volatility, the QSP price stabilized at around $0.10 (~0.000005 BTC) through the end of November. The price followed the trend of the altcoin market and rose rapidly to an all-time high of $0.82 (~0.000051 BTC) before slowly falling to its current price of ~$0.286. The QSP price weathered the beginning of the year market downfall better than most other altcoins.