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.
Groestlcoin is an ASIC-resistant cryptocurrency that boasts having “almost ZERO fees.” Although the coin itself is only pseudo-anonymous (like Bitcoin), the development team has ported a wallet (Samourai) to give you full anonymity. Groestlcoin is strictly a cryptocurrency for peer-to-peer (p2p) payments. The coin serves the same end-goal as other transactional cryptos like Bitcoin and Litecoin but accomplishes that goal with a different set of attributes. Groestlcoin accomplished a few significant “firsts” with its feature set. It was the first coin to implement Segregated Witness (SegWit) and the first to perform a Lightning Network transaction on mainnet. With the implementation of the Lightning Network, Groestlcoin has minimal fees. Transferring 10,000 GRS (~$6000 at the time of this writing) costs fractions of a fraction of a cent. Even if the GRS price rises 1000x, the transaction fee would be just a couple of pennies. Groestlcoin utilizes two rounds of Grøstl-512 for its mining algorithm. This mining algo is ASIC-resistant, for now. A developer going by the Bitcointalk username “Gruve_P” launched Groestlcoin on March 22, 2014. Since then, the team has grown to over 20 people spread all around the world. Most team members prefer to stay relatively anonymous, only sharing their first name and country of origin on the website. The team has been consistent in releasing new versions of the platform every three months. With such consistency, it shouldn’t shock you to hear all that they’ve accomplished in the last four years. The team activated SegWit in January 2017 and is currently working on Lightning Network releases for both their mobile and desktop wallets. The team and community have also built eleven different Android wallets, ten different wallets for Blackberry, and three for iOS. They’ve created more than ten desktop wallets as well. GRS has recently seen a rise in popularity, with most CPU and GPU miners moving away from networks like BTC, where ASIC miners have completely saturated the mining pool. With its robust features, focus on privacy, and innovative technology, GRS is a very lucrative choice for these miners, and has the possibility to be the next big coin that hits the market. While investing in any cryptocurrency is subject to their inherent volatile nature, the immense market potential of Groestlcoin, along with its pioneering technology and dedicated development team, make it a very strong consideration for investment.