Crypto Watch October 2022: Quant Network (QNT)
Can it continue its performance going into 2023?
I am introducing a new feature of my Medium page, where I will cover a different altcoin to watch each month, which, I believe, has significant potential to generate solid returns in the coming months and years.
Today’s crypto in focus is QNT, related to the company, Quant Network Ltd. The business provides interoperable systems to offer real-world solutions across multiple sectors, through the power distributed ledger technology (DLT).
Whilst Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), BNB and XRP are each down by more than 40% since the start of this year, QNT is one of three crypto assets (excluding stablecoins) in the top 100 to be generating double-digit profits for its token holders.
A key product offered by the entity to facilitate connection between businesses and various distributed-ledger systems is Overledger, which is subsequently divided into two separate categories, Integrate and Tokenise.
The former is Quant’s key API that works on any chain, and functions in a fast, economical and simple manner, whereas the latter allows anyone, including a layperson, to create digital tokens that are secure, and compatible with any distributed ledger network (DLN).
Having a system that is universally compatible with any chain will be advantageous for anyone creating and trading digital collectables such as NFTs, which, whilst down at present, I envisage that they will regain traction in the near future.
Reasons why I believe in the crypto and project:
Involvement across multiple sectors, engaging with various stakeholders
Major use cases relating to Quant include:
— Digital currencies (more on this shortly) and payments
— Supply chain and logistics
— Capital markets
— Insurance
— Compliance
Automation will play an increasingly relevant role in boosting efficiency across different facets of society, and DLT will be instrumental in delivering this for the modern economy.
Furthermore, there is plenty of anticipated growth potential in this nascent space in the coming years; it is forecast to more than triple between 2022 and 2025, and estimated to reach $69 billion by the end of this decade.
Thus, if Quant Network can continue to increase its number of (major) partnerships, improve Overledger, and have even greater functionality and adoption of multichain decentralised applications (mDApps), I envisage big things ahead of the entity and QNT.
Reconciling traditional finance and distributed networks
Quant aims to work with the legacy financial system to facilitate the connection with nascent technologies, including blockchain tech.
They understand the importance of connecting existing systems (particularly in finance) with novel ones utilising DLT.
Ultimately, as society adapts to technological change, other systems, including traditional finance (TradFi), will follow suit.
TradFi will most likely benefit from a digital transformation of existing networks, particularly with the gradual emergence of the tokenised economy (though, not without its challenges), converting traditional securities and other tools into digital assets.
It will take time and enormous amounts of work to integrate the current system with novel ones in a way that minimises issues with such a transition.
Anticipation of future tech and financial trends
One that comes to mind is central-bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
Whether you love them, loathe them or neutral about the concept, I see them playing a notable role in future. To date, roughly 100 countries/currency unions are interested in (exploring, developing, trialling and/or launching) this digital money.
Following the demise of algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD and its affiliated crypto Luna (Classic), not to mention doubts and controversy surrounding the reserves of collateralised stablecoins, notably Tether (USDT), I imagine governments would be further inclined to promote CBDCs and commercial alternatives (i.e. from a reputable bank).
Gilbert Verdian, Quant’s Founder and CEO, recently expressed similar views at The Future of Finance discussion earlier this year.
“We don’t see the survivability of algorithmic or crypto stablecoins. We see a world of regulated and issued commercial stablecoins from eMoney licence holders and commercial banks.”
As many people (at least over the past 200 years chiefly across much of the developed world) have relied on a central authority to print and distribute money; banks and similar centralised institutions have remained the major players in the financial realm; major companies with a long-standing presence still wield enormous power across multiple sectors.
In brief, governments, enterprises and other significant authorities will most likely control (at the very least, influence) digital money moving forward.
I will expand on CBDCs and their potential implications on society in a future piece.
QNT Tokenomics
— Circulating supply and maximum supply of 12.073 million and 14.612 million tokens respectively. This relatively low number is analogous to Bitcoin’s supply and (to a lesser extent, Ethereum).
Despite various exchanges mentioning the figures listed above, Etherscan has the QNT circulating supply at 45.467 million tokens. Nonetheless, it is considerably less than other crypto assets and has a fixed supply.
Additionally, this specified max supply, and one that is relatively close to what is available (83% of all QNT in circulation right now) is advantageous from an inflation perspective: it ensures that it is at a sustainable level and will thus avoid substantially devaluing the token (solely due to this metric).
Another factor to consider is how concentrated (or distributed) QNT is in a select number of wallets.
With the exception of two wallets (that hold roughly 21% and 3% of all QNT respectively), every other wallet recorded each hold less than 2% of the max supply.
This is an important metric to monitor for any crypto, as it represents how much (or little) influence whales could potentially have for a given asset.
Mind you, irrespective of who is holding x amount of QNT at a given time, any wealthy investor could come along and purchase over a million tokens in one hit. Despite this, it is still useful to keep an eye on these stats.
QNT price in 2023?
I will refrain from giving an exact price, but I would not rule out a comfortable 5–6x if the event of the entire market re-entering a bull run, similar to what we witnessed in 2021.
I say 5–6x comfortably as this is plausible, when looking at its present (circulating) market cap: Approximately $2 billion.
If this were to 5x by the end of 2023, this would lead to a realistic $10 billion cap.
I am aware that some of you would find this conservative, but to reiterate, I would only bank on this doing a 5x in a year if:
- more partnerships were announced;
- a market-wide bull run took place.
Other food for thought
With hundreds (rather, I imagine thousands) of other reputable projects in this space across the globe, there will be fierce competition to take advantage of early adoption by companies, individuals and other organisations.
Interoperability is what I would consider a buzzword in the crypto/DLT space. There is no shortage of foundations, organisations and otherwise aiming to build a robust and effective product to achieve inter-chain connectivity; Polkadot, Cardano, Cosmos, Ethereum, and several other blockchains are aiming to resolve this issue.
Besides this, there will be a race to secure partnerships with major players in a given industry.
It is becoming increasingly likely that several blockchains will emerge as prominent players, as opposed to one to rule them all (I am looking at you maximalists out there).
I (and some others) envisage the future of crypto and DLT to be a multi-chain one, with emphasis on successful interoperability between multiple blockchains. However, others do beg to differ.
Unlike several other crypto projects in the top 30 that have forged dozens of partnerships, Quant has only listed five notable ones on its website (at the time of writing): Oracle, Sia (Nexi Group), LACChain and Volo.
Having said this, I believe that there are more collaborations in the pipeline.
Thinking of Oracle, Quant Network’s Overledger Enterprise DLT Interoperability Gateway 1.5. serves as a key interoperability solution for Oracle Blockchain Platform, setup to readily bridge private and public networks, systems and DLTs.
This integration helps raise the profile of the Quant Network for enticing prospective partners (assuming all goes well with the collab).
As this DLT and crypto sectors are still in their (relative) infancy, the overall technology has a long way to go. Moreover, many companies, let alone our society in general are still far from embracing the aforementioned tech.
A quick note about developer activity and updates: I could not find any publicly available data pertaining to developer activity, commits and otherwise in Quant Network repositories. I checked various sources, and tried to get information from GitHub about this, though I could not find it.
I assume this related activity is out there, and will update this piece when I have updated and reliable data to present.
A major development on the Quant Network is the release of Overledger 2.0 last year offers additional improvements to developers to produce mDApps in a quick and easy manner.
With more partnerships, continued improvements to its network and greater number of use cases, I consider Quant Network to remain a relevant (and possibly dominant) player in the coming years.
It is still early days, and a lot of work needs to be done (by stakeholders behind multiple cryptos) catch up to other projects and get mass-scale adoption, on both a personal and enterprise level.
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Disclaimers
— None of this is financial advice and I am not a financial advisor. It is a mixture of stats, news and opinions from either myself or the links provided. Please do your own research prior to investing in any crypto assets, let alone any product affiliated with this space.
— I have no connection with Quant Network Limited, nor do they endorse anything written here. Whilst I have used content from their website, I encourage you to double check the information contained herein prior to disseminating any of it.
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