The Full Positive Force
Mr. Patrick Dai is positive about the changes that blockchain technology can bring to society, and what his company Qtum can contribute to the process
In February this year, Qtum announced partnerships with big players Baofeng and Qihu 360, two of China’s leading software companies. Qtum felt it is moving towards a massive commercial adoption, which a partnership with such established companies could facilitate better. CEO and founder Patrick Dai was also convinced blockchain was shifting from a very early stage, when people were only talking about the concept, to one where more and more people are actually trying to build the application. “The timing is good to move from ‘proof of concept’ stage to maximization of useful applications,” Mr. Dai observes. “Baofeng will help Qtum to deploy 50,000 full nodes in one or two years; they will start deploying all the Qtum full nodes in China,” he reveals. “If the Qtum platform can have 50,000 full nodes, it will become the most decentralized platform, vis-a-vis Bitcoin that has about 10,000 full nodes, and Ethereum that has 20,000 full nodes. We are also working with Baofeng on copyright protection, and creating content distribution,” he explains. Qtum’s other partnership is with Qihu 360, the largest listed software company in China, and one of the best Internet security companies in the world. Qihu 360 has about 900 million users worldwide. “We have signed a MOU with them to build a blockchain research lab, create more diversified applications based on Qtum technology, and push the X86 Virtual Machine to be the industrial benchmark,” Mr. Dai shares. “We are also working together on distributed storage and decentralized computing and to maximize the adoption of the technology and create more useful applications that can improve society at large.”
Higher Diversification
Where does the company revenue come from at present? As with many other blockchain companies, Qtum’s growth drivers are multifold. “Part of the revenue comes from community fund raising, and another part from commercial collaboration and equity investment,” Mr. Dai says.
Blockchain technology’s transcendental effect is on par with previous industrial revolutions we have gone through; it’s truly an upgrading of our cognition and ways of social collaboration.
“We are growing super fast,” he emphasized. “Solely on our Initial Coin Offering (ICO), we raised US$15 million in 2017. Today the ecosystem is more mature; we have more than 150 developers in the community who are building around Qtum. We also have the users – the Qtum coin holder – a community of about 1.5 million members who hold stakes of over 7000 full nodes in more than 57 countries around the Qtum network. As we speak, it’s the biggest Proof of Stake smart contract network in the world,” Mr. Dai says proudly. Mr. Dai foresees even higher diversification among the company’s growth drivers in the future. “As with everything in the world,” he points out, “the more we evolve, the more diversified our (growth drivers) will likely be, but what will remain certain and unchanged is our solid technology fundamental that all these DApps (decentralized applications) are built upon. That is our bottom line.” Blockchain technology is also developing quickly, with myriad new applications coming to the fore. Mr. Dai points out that at the moment Qtum has over 50 DApps from over 10 industries on Qtum. These include the energy industry, IP and copyright industry, aerospace technology, online streaming, as well as supply chain, and IoT. “As more people from the traditional industries realize the tremendous potential of blockchain, there will be more people joining the party, and I don’t see why we can’t disrupt traditional bank industry, shipping industry, logistics and transportation, construction and more,” Mr. Dai says with unconcealed optimism.
Spreading the Word
Not very long ago, the public did not know enough about blockchain technology, which tech insiders found to be a major hurdle to its wider acceptance and diversified use. Today, Mr. Dai says they are seeing growing momentum of more people, from a broad range of age groups, professions, races and cultures embracing the technology “to our delight”. “Most of our community members are millennials that are more digitally savvy and sensitive to changes of technology – especially software technology. The WOM (word of mouth) effect among this audience is palpable, and it is encouraging because these young people are the backbone of the future economy, and the market evolves with their changing mindset and behavior. Blockchain is so versatile and adaptive in that it can be embedded into any industry to make the process more transparent, lean and agile, observes Mr. Dai. “I have always believed that DApp will change people’s daily lives; although the current blockchain industry is still a toddler, it will grow up into an adult one day. That’s why I believe that, as one of the early adopters, I have the responsibility to spread the knowledge, communicate it broadly, and increase the mindshare of the benefits of blockchain technology.”
Transcendental Effects
Everyone expects blockchain technology to bring profound changes in society over the next decade. Mr. Dai sees that the “innate characteristics of blockchain technology will make society more open, transparent, efficient and decentralized”. “Its transcendental effect is on par with those previous industrial revolutions that humankind has gone through. It’s truly an upgrading of our cognition and ways of social collaboration,” he declares. “For example, financial industry has been one of the most active explorers of blockchain technology, although finance is highly regulated, especially in China. This industry is the largest holder of blockchain-related patents.” Qtum, for instance, allows users to authenticate their identity through smart contracts, which enables them to use more DApps, such as those provided by the financial industry. More and more financial institutions embrace the technology for anti-fraud, due diligence, KYC and so on. “Blockchain technology is not yet mainstream. However, through Qtum’s ‘Go Mobile’ strategy, Qtum will push Dapps to the masses.”
A New Ecosystem
Qtum is on its way to build a new ecosystem that can attract a large number of developers in China and other parts of the world, Mr. Dai claims. “We strive towards becoming the application platform for value transfer protocol and DApps, providing an automated, trusted, friction-free trading environment that Trust Service is built upon. We believe the Trust Service will prevail the way that water and electricity do today – a necessity in trading businesses.” There are over 50 applications across a broad spectrum of sectors that are already built on the Qtum chin including IoT, energy, finance, healthcare, entertainment. “Ten years is a tough call as the technology upgrades very fast – a of lot of things are unpredictable. We certainly hope to build 500 projects over the next three to four years, truly implementing the technology in all fields of society to minimize trading cost, maximize efficiency, and promote industrial upgrading and social development.”