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 $15.7 million before stopping the campaign early after only 5 days. They raised a total amount of 11,156.766 bitcoins (BTC) and 77,081.031 ether (ETH) in exchange for the 51 million Qtum tokens being distributed to the public. In Qtum’s whitepaper, 51% of the coins were distributed to the public via the crowdfunding campaign. Of the remaining 49%, 29% of the coins would be allocated as community incentives, and the remaining 20% would be distributed to the early backers and development team.
PacCoin (PAC), or the People’s Alternative Choice Coin, is a lesser-known coin that’s been sitting since 2015. It experienced rapid inflation during 2017, which might be attributed to generous mining rewards. At the start of 2018, PAC had become one of the cheapest cryptocurrency coins out there, with a relatively large total supply of roughly 3.5 trillion coins and a planned cap of 100 trillion. It has a devoted community that hopes to see their holdings come to fruition and make them rich, believing in its future as an “Internet penny” that lends itself to micro-transactions. PACcoins started to trade at 0.0000$ as of only a couple of days ago. Later on, the coin gained some on its price with a couple of increases that helped the price jump from non-existent to existent. After the latest decrease that made the price drop for over –9%. This decrease led to the current price of 0.000031$, which is still better than having the coin traded at 0$. For now, it remains uncertain what will happen with PACcoin and how well this coin will perform after being re-launched three weeks from now. For now, we strongly advise to give this token a thought and consider investing – the price is still too low, so even if the coin drops again, you won’t be losing much money.