With the emergence of Distributed Ledger Technologies such as Blockchain, people have started to recognize how such platforms can potentially revolutionize the way in which we handle our finances. However, with that being said, it is also important to understand that the low-transactional capacity of today’s blockchain based networks is nowhere near enough to cover for the total e-commerce demand across the globe. Thus as we move into the future, the need for scalable crypto services is becoming increasingly obvious as more and more people are now starting to use cryptocurrency enabled platforms.
QuarkChain is an all-new permissionless blockchain network that has been designed to help facilitate financial transactions which lay in conjunction with commercial standards that are adhered to across the globe. The platform is laden with a secure framework that is not only scalable but can deliver an impressive 100K on-chain TPS (Transactions per Second).
In terms of its architectural framework, Quarkchain consists of two blockchain layers. The first consists of elastic sharding blockchains (shards) while the second serves as the root foundation of the ecosystem. The shards are flexible and can be manipulated without affecting the functional capacity of the root blockchain.
Secondly, in order to maintain the efficiency of all internal transactions, the platform uses a game-theoretic framework that is designed to dispense pertinent incentives while allocating at least 50% of the overall hash power of the system to the root chain— thereby preventing/ minimizing the chances of double spending.
Overview of the system
- Quarkchain makes use of a cluster consisting of multiple cheap nodes rather than using a super-full node that is not only expensive to deploy but also prone to centralization.
- The platform allows for efficient cross-shard transactions that can be issued at any time.
- Transactions can be confirmed within a matter of minutes since the speed of each internal process increases linearly with the number of shards.
- The system allows users to store multiple cryptocurrencies in one smart wallet.
- Quarkchain supports Turing smart contracts as well as makes use of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to help integrate EVM dApps onto its native platform.
Key Features
Quarkchain incorporates a structural design that helps enhance the platform’s overall scalability while not compromising on the security and decentralization of the native network. Not only that, through the use of a unique cross-shard protocol, the platform helps facilitate transactions between different blockchains.
An Overview of the QuarkChain Ecosystem
To further elaborate on the architecture used by QuarkChain, we can see that the network consists of minor blockchains called ‘shards’. Each shard has the capacity to process a subset of all internal transactions independently but the root chain still has to confirm the data blocks which have been issued by the shards.
Another core aspect of Quarkchain is its use of a collaborative mining design to help dole out incentives to its users. To further elaborate on this point, we can see that the platform deploys several shards, all of whom can be used by miners depending on their hash power requirements.
From a security standpoint, Quarkchain runs a POW algorithm for its root chain whereas all of the shards run on a derivative algorithm called the root-chain-first POW. As a result of these measures, it becomes difficult for hackers and other third-party miscreants to invade the network.
How it Works
While traditional blockchains require each node within their network to fully validate the data blocks being passed through them, Quarkchain processes transactions by allowing multiple honest nodes to run as a cluster wherein each node can only validate a specific sub-set of chains.
Thus, if one node crashes within the cluster, the rest of the nodes are still able to fully validate blocks.
Operational structure of the QuarkChain network
In regard to its transactional power, we can see that the QuarkChain network allows for In-Shard as well as Cross-Shard transactions. The former are relatively simple since a single shard already contains all of the required ledger information. However, cross-shard transactions are a bit more complicated since they need a higher level of synchronization between the involved blockchains for the process to be completed.
An illustration of how cross-shard transactions work
Lastly, Quarkchain greatly simplifies account management by making use of smart contracts as well as a native wallet application.
About the team
Qi Zhou is the founder of this project. As per his LinkedIn bio, Qi has previously worked at Google where he was involved with their software development activities for over 15 years. In terms of his educational background, Qi holds a PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Zhao Wang is the Senior Software Engineer for QuarkChain. He too has been in the digital domain for a decade and has previously worked for companies such as Facebook and Google. Zhao possesses a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.
Lastly, the venture boasts of a research team that comprises of established industry professionals including Xiaoli Ma, Yaodong Yang and Wencen Wu. All of the aforementioned individuals hold PhD’s in specialized sectors related to software dev and have also worked for many high-profile blockchain projects in the past.
Token Performance
Introduced into the cryptoverse just a fortnight back, QKC has had an impressive monetary showing since its market inception.
QKC token lifetime performance data (courtesy of Coincodex)
As of June 12, QKC possesses a market cap of USD 61.40M and a total token supply of 10 BLN native coins. However, at press time, only 357M of the total currency volume is in circulation.
Final Thoughts
With Quarkchain offering crypto enthusiasts with a high-capacity peer-to-peer transactional system, it would not be surprising to see this project fare extremely well this year.
While the recent performance of the native QKC token is not an indicator for future currency value, the fact that QKC’s value rose by over a thousand per cent within days of its launch, signifies an immense market interest in this product.
If you would like to start investing in QuarkChain, QKC trading pairs are currently available on Binance, Gate.io, Kucoin, IDEX etc.