QTUM brings an advanced version of smart contracts to market.
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Approximate Market Cap: $1 billion
Year Established: 2017
Cost Per Transaction: Nominal
2020 Return: 44%
Score: ★★★
In many ways, QTUM looks much like Lisk — a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency that combines the best of both Bitcoin and Ethereum. And like Lisk, QTUM was thrust back into the spotlight this year after trading app Robinhood added the coin to its list of tracked currencies. By the second week of February, QTUM had risen 270%.
But there’s where the similarities begin to end. Unlike Lisk, which is written in the more-commonly used JavaScript, QTUM is written in far faster C. That has allowed its community to develop strong protocols that have kept up with many of Bitcoin’s own modifications.
QTUM remains a niche coin — as of the beginning of 2021, the cryptocurrency remains outside the top-50 by market cap. But as investors start to look further afield for interesting technologies, QTUM could see its moment to shine.