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.
As energy consumption is expected to double until 2030, the world is looking for new distributed energy development models to directly connect end users to producers, to allow consumers direct access to accountable, cheaper energy and to provide producers with increased ROI; enabling a faster renewable energy deployment around the world. Our solution is a new ecosystem - Restart Energy Democracy - one that exists inside the current legislation in deregulated energy markets and that provides incentives for consumers, producers. and local micro entrepreneurs, or even other private suppliers to participate. It's a system built on blockchain technology, that virtually connects energy consumers to energy producers (prosumers) with smart contracts, so that they may trade directly under our supply license or under a different private suppliers license. Allowing consumers to virtually buy energy directly from producers reduces transaction risk and payment collection costs for the suppliers, creates higher revenues and a finance solution for producers, and reduces the cost of energy for consumers, while at the same time offering entrepreneurs the possibility to start their own power retail business with our franchise. As we already have 30,000 customers, we will have first mover advantage compared to all the other energy ICO's.