Friday, March 8, 2019

Quant Network review - the only internet-scale ANY:ANY interoperability protocol

Quant Network has been in the top #100 for a month, slipping out as of today, with just 2485 token holders. I think the project's flown beneath the radar for many!

Here's the low-down:

Intro

The CEO Gilbert Verdian founded the ISO TC307 standard for blockchain in April 2016, where 52 countries now collaborate to implement a standard that will be adopted globally. Standards are a pivotal component to adoption, as they essentially represent a commitment made by numerous entities to use a particular technology or format.

A key aim of standardisation is to ensure interoperability between multiple DLT/Blockchain implementations and, in doing so, reduce the risk of a fragmented ecosystem. Gilbert Verdian is the chairman of the SG7 workgroup on "Interoperability of blockchain and distributed ledger technology systems". Work into the standard is ongoing and it is planned to be finalised no later than 2021.

Blockchain Standards Workshop, Australia

Quant Network aims to provide the technology for enterprise and startups to take advantage of DLT's, by making it possible to connect to blockchains using just 3 lines of code in less than 8 minutes. Unlike other interoperability solutions Overledger isn't a blockchain and doesn’t require fundamental system changes to use the technology. It is more apt to call it a blockchain protocol, comparable to the internet protocol TCP/IP. Overledger facilitates routing between blockchains by using a verification block, which not only helps ensure that consensus times are kept to a minimum, but also handles double spend and forking issues across different ledgers.

Overledger Architecture Model

The team launched Overledger in November, demonstrating 4 multi-chain apps running on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Hyperledger:

The product is at full release for the Enterprise version of Overledger for permissioned blockchains. The current open source version will be connected to permissionless blockchains by the summer, currently it's test-net only.

Overledger can facilitate cross-chain atomic swaps, and Zero Knowledge Proofs are possible using the teams patented TrustTag solution: Trusttag allows the tokenisation of assets to be used on the blockchain and to easily connect off chain data to onchain.

Interoperability is not just limited to transferring value between blockchains via atomic swaps but messages / data can be used by adding a hash of a message to the metadata of a transaction on any blockchain which facilitates the interoperability without having to add another blockchain by utilising the trust and security of the source blockchain.

All communication is encrypted on the client side. Overledger is not affected by forks or updates of underlying blockchains, as it abstracts the messaging layer from the transaction layer, sitting above it.

Their ICO finished April last year, followed by a token burn in September as the team only raised $10-11M of their $40M ask. The ICO Price was $1.51 and pre-sale 94c. The first draft of the Token utility paper was released in January. The Treasury function will be completed by the second half of the year, so we can probably expect an updated Token utility paper between now and then.

Crypto Chico gives a good 3min tech-dive intro and Blockchain Brad has done 3 great interviews. Crypto Zombie does a longer 13min tech-dive.

Team

In recent appointments, Gilbert Verdian was the Chief information security officer (CISO) at NSW Health (Australian Government), Deputy CTO at HM Treasury working with Cabinet Ministers and the Chancellor responsible for securely transforming Central Government Departments including the systems that are critical for the operating and running of the UK economy. Responsibilities covered Downing St, Cabinet Office, Bank of England, Financial Services Authority, and the Debt Management Office. He was also the CTO at UKFI, responsible for rapidly establishing the agency during the financial crisis to take ownership of £350B worth of toxic assets from the banks. As CISO for PayUK, previously NPSO - Nation Payments Scheme Operating, he was responsible for the security for all payments in the UK, £6T per year.

In the past, Gilbert worked for the Federal Reserve on their Secure Payments Task Force, founded the, Bank of England Cybersecurity committee, Australian Government, Ministry of Justice, BP, HSBC, and VocaLink (a Mastercard company).

Gilbert currently serves as the Chair of DLT for healthcare in the British Government.

Jean-Paul Dejong, Chief Architect has worked across Government in Defra, HMRC, Border Force, National Crime Agency, Ambulance Radio Programme and Europol. At UK Border Force he introduced the first interactive pre-departure checking system in Europe. He’s worked as solutions architect in the private sector at KPMG, Compaq and Citibank and PrimeLocation.

Colin Paterson has worked in working in cyber-security, for the last 16 years in large Fortune 100, FTSE 100 and Government organisations around the world: AI and penetration testing at Barclays Bank, Prudential, Nationwide, Guardian. He co-founded machine-learning, cyber-security and AI firm Trudera with Gilbert Verdian 11 years ago. He invented the TrustTag patent to solve the counterfeit problem in supply chains, it’s evolved to prevent fraud and is a key component of Overledger.

Co-founder and advisor Paolo Tasca is adviser on blockchain technologies for EU Parliament and UN, founder and advisor for UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies and former lead economist for Deutsche Bank. Tasca recently stated that "Enabling cross-chain communications — including the recognition and transfer of transactions — is not dissimilar to opening borders to allow international trade. It will usher in a new era of digital economic growth and prosperity not unlike the industrial revolutions of the past."

The ISO/TC 307 standard is being adopted and promoted in the EU by:

Token utility

The Overledger network decouples the transaction and messaging layers of the underlying blockchain, adding support for off-chain smart-contract execution and storage.

The token protects the service from denial-of-service attacks. QNT is required and locked up as a license to access the network on both public and enterprise (permissioned) chains, is payment for read and write operations and to access multi-chain apps (mApps). Dev’s can choose to pay for QNT ‘gas’ on behalf of the user, choosing to monetise their app through a different channel (advertising, fiat subscription etc) - allowing for seamless experiences without the need of Metamask or 3rd party extension. mApp users pay in fiat currency, and the Treasury function handles the purchasing of QNT.

In the second half of the year the team plans to decentralise their network by allowing Enterprises and additional Cloud Service Providers, as well as the community the possibility to host an incentivised "gateway". It is still to be confirmed how gateway operators would be incentivised, the team is considering a dual token system.

At the time of writing, 16% of the QNT circulating supply has been registered by developers working on Overledger applications.

Upcoming news

  • Team is currently working with over 70 clients, at different stages. They are meeting with global multinationals, central banks, government agencies and UK / US banks.
  • Team is opening offices in USA and Australia.
  • Hackathon at Adelaide Convention Centre cosponsored with IBM, CSIRO and DATA61.
  • Digital Clinical Trials with a Government Health agency.
  • Potential presentation at Consensys 2019.
  • Expanding marketing outreach through new hires and unfolding strategies/publicities
  • Another large cloud provider to be announced.
  • Forthcoming Overledger website launch.
  • Quant Network have been migrating their GoVerify product to a mApp, and are progressing a very large client to potentially use GoVerify covering all of the UK.

Upcoming features

  • The forthcoming Treasury function will allow for 'gas' costs to be paid for in QNT, simplifying use and giving flexibility to mApp developers to come up with novel revenue structures.
  • Quant Network is partnered with HAW Hamburg University to develop Treaty Contracts, multi-chain smart-contracts that operate off-chain inside Overledger in something like a JVM. They aim to have this ready this year. It will be possible for treaty-contracts to function on blockchains that don't natively support smart contract capabilities.
  • BPI interfaces for IOTA and JP Morgan's Quorum (currently in QA)
  • Blockchain integration with Corda, Alastria, Redbelly, possibly Hashgraph (integration priority driven by enterprise demand).
  • New SDK's for Ruby and Python developers.
  • Open-sourcing the connectors and the Overledger Standard so anyone can create their own connectors to blockchains not connected to yet.
  • Deep Packet Inspection tools, Intrusion Protection System, Identity and Firewall solutions.
  • Quant IPs to allow direct connectivity from the Internet (IP) to blockchain (QIP).

Team revenue

The business paper covers this on page 12-17, the team provides consulting, has and is producing enterprise and middleware products, and sector-specific technology with focus on Financial Services, Healthcare, Supply-chain and Government opportunities. They will license their IP to manufacturers and Internet providers/blockchain providers.

Partnerships

  • Founding member of INATBA, the International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications - a multidisciplinary collaboration of 26 EU countries as well as Norway, including UK, France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Ireland. Quant Network will drive to facilitate the collaboration of INATBA with ISO TC307. (Current members as of yesterday.)

Gilbert Verdian and Soren Gigler, INATBA inauguration

  • Quant Network and Australian government cloud provider AUCloud have been working together for more than a year on a formal partnership: to apply the world’s first Blockchain Operating System to interact with their supply chain, critical infrastructure, national record keeping and financial services for Australian government, defense and critical national industry.
  • Quant Network was accepted as a company guarantor of Pay UK, the UK’s largest payment network, alongside banks and other FinTech companies. Through this relationship, Quant Network will reshape the national payment ecosystem to promote competition, innovation and openness, as well as setting the strategic direction of the Payments infrastructure and adopting the New Payments Architecture (NPA).
  • Accepted in Oracle's Startup program, they're presenting at two of their customer showcases in April.
  • Quant Network and Crowdz have a partnership to connect their digital B2B network across multiple blockchains.
  • Exclusive partnership with Jiangsu Huaxin Blockchain Research Insitute (JBI) the first Chinese state-owned research hub dedicated to exploring blockchain technology for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. Real world challenges that will be explored include anti-money laundering as well as broader applications in the healthcare and supply chain sectors.
  • Joined the Accord Project's international working group to establish standardisation of smart contracts using Overledger. Accord are working to establish a hybrid of legal and technological standards for the future of legal contracting.
  • Partnership with AllianceBlock, an AI-powered decentralized investment and financing ecosystem, to provide an AML/KYC solution, multi-chain token swaps and cross-chain support.
  • Quant Network’s involvement within the EU’s Blockchain Observatory since 2018 helps to accelerate blockchain innovation and the development of the blockchain ecosystem within the EU, and so help cement Europe’s position as a global leader in this transformative new technology.

Additional info

There's a fortnightly AMA with the CEO in the community telegram that are always engaging, genuine, and tend to reveal a lot - next one is Monday 1pm UCT. Previous AMA's are available from the QNTunofficial community site.

The most liquid exchange is currently IDEX for ETH and Bittrex International for BTC trading.


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