QuarkChain Multiple Nodes

QuarkChain is a blockchain that utilizes sharding to provide a high-capacity peer-to-peer transactional system. It will consist of two main layers – the sharding layer, which allows for high throughput by effectively distributing data, and the Root layer, which serves to confirm the blocks of the first.

Using this design, QuarkChain aims to satisfy the tradeoff between the three pillars of a blockchain – decentralization, security, and scalability.

There will be Nodes and Clusters for mining on the QuarkChain platform. Clusters are multiple nodes forming a cluster running as a super-full node. This way, supernodes can be formed without them being run by supercomputers. This will provide smaller players a competitive edge in mining.

Below are some of the features of QuarkChain:
• 50% or more of the hashpower will be dedicated to the root layer to prevent any double spending attacks.
• No lower limit as to the number of nodes required for a shard.
• Supports GPU mining.
• Support cross shard transactions.
• The more nodes there are, the higher the scalability.
To further increase adoption and ease of use, QuarkChain will provide support for and integrate the Ethereum Virtual Machine for smart contracts, as it is the most commonly use execution engine. This will allow dApps built on the EVM to have the ability to be deployed directly on the QuarkChain Platform.
The project is still under development, though they secured ~2,000 transactions per second (TPS) on their early closed test. The team is recruiting volunteers to try the testnet, which should go live around the same time as the crowdsale.

This is the projected roadmap for the project:

Q2 2018 - TestNet 0.2 release which will support most of QuarkChain’s features such as smart contract, reshard, and so on.

Q4 2018 - QuarkChain Core 1.0 release, Mainnet 1.0, and Smart Wallet (aiming for ~100,000 TPS at this time).

Q2 2019 - QuarkChain Core 2.0 release, Smart Wallet 2.0, (aiming for ~1 million TPS with clustering at this time).
QKC coins are used as transaction fees for transactions performed on QuarkChain. It will also be used as reward for miners. These value of QKC coins should depend on the usage of QuarkChain. The more activities and transactions being made on QuarkChain, the more valuable QKC coins should be.

The initial tokens released will be ERC-20, and a placeholder for the value of the actual coins which will be released with the mainnet that is scheduled in Q4 2018. At time of mainnet release, there will be a token swap.
The team consists of 9 members, with the following being the key members of the team:

Qi Zhou, Founder – PhD in Electric and Computer engineering with 5 years’ experience in engineering and software engineering with the most recent being with Facebook as a software engineer.

Zhaoguang Wang, Software Engineer – 7 years’ experience in software engineering with tech giants such as Facebook, Instagram, and Google.

Xiaoli Ma, Research Scientist – Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. PhD in electrical engineering and 7 years’ experience in the tech industry with the most recent being the CTO of Ratrix Technologies.

Yaodong Yang, Research Scientist – PhD in engineering, and a Tenure Track Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University, and co-founder of Demo++ Technological Incubator.

They also have 6 advisors including Bill Moore, Chief Engineer for Storage at Sun Microsystems, Arun G. Phadke, Virginia Tech Professor, Zhiyun Qian, cyber security expert, among others.
• The closed testnet is already demonstrating a TPS of 2,000 using just a few AWS nodes, which puts it ahead of most other blockchain 3.0 projects with much higher valuation. As more nodes are being used in the testnet, higher scalability should be achieved.
• We mentioned a few months ago that scalability will be one of the central subjects in 2018. Those projects that can successfully tackle this problem would be hugely rewarded.
• QuarkChain integrates with Solidity, which is by far the most popular language used to program dApps. For those dApps built on Ethereum that need a high throughput, it will be easy to port over to QuarkChain, providing a low barrier of entry to adapt the platform.
• The team consists of a mix of academicians and engineers at reputable tech companies/universities. Their credentials provides comfort as to the execution ability of the team.
• The team wants to wait until the blockchain demonstrates higher throughput before actively seeking projects to be built on the QuarkChain platform. While it makes sense to prove what they claim first, we feel that they could be more aggressive in terms of generating traction on adoption of the blockchain.

The full token metrics aren’t public yet, but with a hard cap of $20 million, high market awareness, and the private sale has been fully booked many times over, we believe there will be substantial unmet demand following token distribution.

As far as we know, QuarkChain and Zilliqa are the only project that is implementing sharding on testnet. Those who have been following us know that we like Zilliqa as it is one of our picks for the Crusher of the Month, with a current market cap of $705 million.

The hard cap of $20 million represents just 2.8% of the market cap of Zilliqa, the closest comparable project and by itself undervalued in our opinion. There is a substantial disconnect between the valuation of QuarkChain and other promising blockchain 3.0 projects. Therefore, we believe QuarkChain has the potential to go down as one of the most successful ICO projects in 2018.