QuarkChain (QKC) ICO Analysis: Solving the Scalability — Security — Decentralization Trilemma

Executive Summary

Project Description

Blockchain technology has influenced the world we live in extensively, and at this point, its effect cannot be denied. However, before mainstream adoption is possible, there are still some parts of blockchain tech that needs to be improved upon. One major issue is that centralized proof of work mining pools are making it impossible for the blockchain to be truly decentralized — as seen with Bitcoin. Another is: at the moment, the most recognized blockchains are not scalable for high transaction throughputs — mainstream adoption is impossible without this. There are some proposed solutions to these problems, but Bitcoin’s Lightning Network is only applicable to frequent off-chain transactions among a fixed group of parties and Ethereum’s sharding technology is still in development.

To solve the problems above, QuarkChain aims to develop its own blockchain, a blockchain that should be able to extend its scalability — up to 1 million transactions per second (tps), according to the project — without compromising on security and decentralization. To make this possible, QuarkChain’s structure will have a root chain and many more blockchain shards that will run subsets of transactions independently. Consequently, the more the number of shards in the network, the higher the capacity of the blockchain.

As a result, QuarkChain’s platform is expected to:

• Enhance scalability while guaranteeing security and decentralization.
• Enable seamless cross-shard transactions to ensure a quality experience for users.
• Provide simple account management for clients; only one account for all shards.
• Provide an open infrastructure for DApps that require high transaction throughput.
• Be an incentive-driven ecosystem.

Furthermore, network participants will reportedly be rewarded in QKC tokens for running nodes and supporting the network — participants may choose to join a cluster of nodes and form a super-full node. QuarkChain is also expected to support smart contracts by using the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

QKC is QuarkChain’s native token and it should serve as the governing currency in the ecosystem. It will be used to pay network fees, as a medium to exchange value, and to reward community members for their contributions.

Existing Product

The QuarkChain project claims to have an in-house testnet that reaches around 2,000 transactions per second. There is no public proof of that, but several people confirmed privately that they’ve seen the prototype.

Code Review

Cryptobriefing team reviewed QuarkChain’s code and published their findings here. Their conclusion is as follows:

There are things I disagree with, but I am honestly impressed. I think they should throw away the 1 million TPS claim and just say 50k TPS, and I really think they have a realistic shot at it.
 — Andre Cronje

Roadmap

Q2 2018 — Testnet 0.1 along with Wallet 0.1 (10K+ tps).

Q3 2018 — Testnet 0.2.

Q4 2018 — QuarkChain Core 1.0, Mainnet 1.0, Smart Wallet 1.0 (100K+ tps).

Q2 2019 — QuarkChain Core 2.0, Smart Wallet 2.0 (1M+ tps).

Hard Cap and Valuation

The project aims to raise $20 million. Total token supply is 10 Billion and team tokens will be vested over 2 years. More information about token distribution will be released in due time.

Important Dates

QKC crowdsale is scheduled to take place sometime between the end of May 2018 and the beginning of June 2018.

Marketing Power

As of the time this post was published, QuarkChain had over 19,600 followers on Telegram, 3,900+ followers on Twitter, over 1,000 followers on Medium and 107 followers on GitHub.

Team Members’ Areas of Expertise

Business experts

Ting Du, Business Development and Eco-system

• Work experience is unavailable at the moment.

Target market experts

QuarkChain’s team has considerable expertise in the software development sector but not so much in blockchain development.

Marketing experts

Anthurine Xiang, Marketing and Community.

• Lead Platform Analytics at Wish — Shopping Made Fun for over a year.
• Analytics, Business Development & Marketing at Beepi for almost 2 years.
• Lead of Product Analytics at Chartboost for over a year.
• Consumer Marketing & Analytics at LinkedIn for almost a year.
• Financial Consultant at Argus Information and Advisory Services for almost 2 years.
• Master’s Degree in System Analysis and Economic Management.

Julianne Zhu, Social Media Broadcasting.

• Shanghai Branch Manager at RoboTerra, Inc for 2 years.
• Master’s Degree in Business Administration, Accounting.

Legal experts

No team member with legal expertise.

Software engineering experts

Qi Zhou, Founder.

• Software Engineer at Facebook for a year.
• Consultant Software Engineer at Dell EMC for almost a year.
• Principal Software Engineer at Dell EMC for almost 2 years.
• Software Engineer at Google for almost a year.
• Senior Engineer at Ratrix Technologies for almost a year.
• PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Zhaoguang Wang, Software Engineer.

• Senior Software Engineer at Facebook for over a year.
• Software Engineer at Instagram for 4 months.
• Senior Software Engineer at Google for 5 years.
• Research Assistant at University of Michigan for a year.
• Master’s Degree in Computer Science and Engineering.

Xiaoli Ma, Research Scientist.

• Co-founder & CTO of Ratrix Technologies for over 6 years (ongoing).
• Professor, IEEE fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology for almost 4 years (ongoing).
• Associate Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology for 4 years.
• PhD in Electrical Engineering.

Yaodong Yang, Research Scientist.

• Tenure track Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University for almost 7 years (ongoing).
• Research Assistant at Virginia Tech for almost 4 years.
• Research Assistant at University of Dayton for almost 2 years.
• Vice Chair in Education at Xi’an Jiaotong University for almost 4 years (ongoing).
• Co-founder at Demo++ technological incubator for almost 3 years (ongoing).
• PhD in Engineering.

Wencen Wu, Research Scientist.

• Assistant Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for almost 5 years (ongoing).
• PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Blockchain development experts

No team member with blockchain development expertise.

Token economics

No team member with token economics expertise, however, two of their advisors, Kevin Hsu and Leo Wang are successful cryptocurrency investors. It may be assumed that both men have some experience in token economics; if they do, the project should benefit from their knowledge.

Token sale structure

Same as above.

Conclusion

Strengths

• Strong developer team with profound academic backgrounds.
• Project claims to have an internal testnet alpha with 2000+ tps.
• QuarkChain aims to be an infrastructural layer for high throughput DApps (AI, IoT, gaming).

Potential risks for investors

• Various Blockchain projects are already working on scalability (Loom, Zilliqa, TomoChain, etc).

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Disclaimers:

• Nothing written in this article is a legal or an investment advice.
• Information is provided on a best-effort basis and is subject to change without prior notice. Be sure to verify everything you read with a project team.

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The analysis was produced by Research Center team members: Alexander Bugaj, Mark Jedd, Anna Muratova.

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