Quarkchain: The Zilliqa Killer

Firstly, what the heck is Quarkchain?

The QuarkChain ICO (QKC Token) is a primarily two layer, peer-to-peer transaction blockchain. The first layer of system contains shards, while the second layer is comprised of a root chain. The architecture of QuarkChain aims to tackle the three main challenges of any blockchain: security, scalability and decentralization.

Ok, so what does sharding actually mean?

In the context of blockchain, sharding is the breaking down of the overall consensus network into smaller divisions called “shards”, each capable of independently processing transactions.

As part of Sharding only a small set of nodes, where each one is called a Shard, carries out validation of every transaction.

For example, take the United States of America to simplify how sharding works. You have a federal government and in turn, several states (50 states to be exact!!!) where each state is managed by a state government. Although each state government can operate independently and technically by its own set of rules it still follows the laws set out (generally speaking) by the federal government. In effect, overall efficiency is increased and the difficulty of micromanaging all the different states is decreased. This is similar to how the ethereum network will be logically divided into multiple Shards. Transactions created by users or a particular Shard will be validated by miners present in that specific Shard.

In effect, multiple transactions get validated at the same time. This parallel processing improves the efficiency of the system by several times.

Overall, Sharding allows for flexibility to the network, as forced storage of all transactions on every single network node becomes inefficient, which helps in terms of scalability.

Figure 1. Example of how Sharding works. Taken from Quarkchain’s whitepaper.

Quarkchain’s main competitor: Zilliqa

As far as I know Zilliqa is the only project that has successfully implemented sharding on their testnet and therefore, represents itself as the main competitor to Quarkchain.

Zilliqa implements transaction sharding, which means that their architecture is partitioned into smaller sub-networks that can validate transactions in parallel. Ultimately, scalability is accomplished because the number of validated transactions is proportional to the number of nodes that become part of the network.

While transaction sharding in its simplest form is straightforward, processing power is increased when running decentralized applications as more complex processes occur. This effectively negates the advantages of sharding. Ethereum is currently working on a portential solution to this problem — namely state sharding.

This is where Quarkchain comes in. Quarkchain aims to achieve a multi-facted approach and create a solution with less limitations. Unlike Zilliqa, where a shard is a group of nodes, a shard is an actual blockchain when it comes to Quarkchain. Each one is its own independent smart contract system and if one is overloaded, moving funds from one shard to another by using a smart wallet system becomes feasible. This constitutes the first layer of QuarkChain.

The second layer is the root blockchain where consensus is reached. All it does is confirm the block headers by performing Proof of Work. So, if we go back to our previous example, the second layer is the federal government whereas the first layer are all the individual states.

Figure 2. Quarkchain’s unique architecture. Taken from their whitepaper.

Unlike Zilliqa, Quarkchain claims to support both network and state sharding. QuarkChain will also support smart contracts on the Ethereum virtual machine giving dApps built on Ethereum the option to switch over to QuarkChain at any point, giving it an advantage over Zilliqa when it comes to widespread adoption.

What are the details of the ICO?

· Ticker: QKC

· Token type: ERC20

· Fundraising Goal: 20,000,000 USD

· Total Tokens: 10,000,000,000

· Available for Token Sale: 20%

How do I contribute?

The KYC process has already started and you have until May 20th 11:59:59AM PST to participate.

The scoring process is divided into 3 parts:

1. The earliest timestamp when a participant joined any of the relevant Telegram groups. (30%)

2. A quiz on your understanding of the product. (50%)

3. A submission on your contribution to the project. (20%)

More details about 2 and 3 will be announced later.

Only people who score more than 60 will then be entered into a final lottery.

So how do I increase my chances of participating?

1. Join the Telegram channel.

2. Read their whitepaper.

3. Wait for further announcements.

References

Website: https://quarkchain.io/
Medium: https://medium.com/@quark_30920
Telegram: https://t.me/quarkchain
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quarkchain.quark.5
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quark_Chain
Weibo: http://weibo.com/QuarkChain
Github: https://github.com/QuarkChain

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This is my personal opinion and does not constitute financial or legal advise. Please do your own research as ICO’s are extremely risky.