Qtum is a decentralized and open-source smart contracts platform and value transfer protocol. Qtum uses proof-of-stake consensus, meaning node operators are rewarded for validating transactions. It is a DGP governed blockchain where community participants can vote to change certain network parameters. Qtum is built on a bitcoin core fork, but the foundation has created its own hybrid blockchain with the help of several key tools. The coin uses bitcoin’s chain because of its simple and stable nature, allowing the foundation to build upon it more easily. As the QTUM project is a hybrid of Bitcoin and Ethereum, its team comprises of members from both Bitcoin and Ethereum community. They also have team members who formerly worked with Tencent, Alibaba, Nasdaq etc. Apart from that, they are backed by some notable VCs and prominent people from the Blockchain community such as Patrick Dai (Project Co-Founder), Neil Mahi (Chief Blockchain Architect/Co-Founder) and Jordan Earls (Lead Developer/Co-Founder). Qtum provides a Turing-complete blockchain stack and is able to execute smart contracts and decentralised applications like the Ethereum blockchain. Qtum builds on Bitcoin's UTXO transaction model and uses the Proof-of-Stake algorithm. It is backed by some highly prominent members of the blockchain community such as Anthony Di Iorio, Xu Star, Bo Shen, David Lee, Jehan Chu and Roger Ver. Qtum sold over 10 million dollars’ worth of its tokens after only 90 minutes, eventually raising a total value of $15.7 million before stopping the campaign early after only 5 days. They raised a total amount of 11,156.766 bitcoins (BTC) and 77,081.031 ether (ETH) in exchange for the 51 million Qtum tokens being distributed to the public. In Qtum’s whitepaper, 51% of the coins were distributed to the public via the crowdfunding campaign. Of the remaining 49%, 29% of the coins would be allocated as community incentives, and the remaining 20% would be distributed to the early backers and development team.
Users can employ unused hard disk capacity to mine Bitcoins without the need for expensive mining rigs and other specialized hardware. Traditional mining hardware is energy intensive, noisy, produces a lot of heat, and is becoming increasingly specialized, moving beyond the means of ordinary people. With BHD, mining is simple and accessible. POW-based mining is all about raw computing power and energy output, whereas BHD's POC-based mining is far more energy efficient and returns to Satoshi Nakamoto’s original ideal that mining would be decentralized and performed by ordinary people. POC (Proof of Capacity) scans are only performed once every few minutes. For the rest of the time the hard disk is on stand-by with negligible power usage, greatly reducing energy costs. Based on capacity proof, it will support super-large blocks in the future and will add functions such as zero-knowledge proof. Solid-state drives are expensive, POC has no requirement for fast data processing, only capacity, so POC naturally eliminates ASIC chips. Currently, the amount of energy expended globally in POW mining is greater than the total energy output of 159 countries. The development of digital currencies shouldn’t have to be built on the wasting of resources. With BHD, POW calculations can be completed with a minimum of computing and energy resources.