Qtum token sale raises over $15m in five days

The Qtum (pronounced "Quantum") Foundation has raised over $15m in just five days, listing the project among the all-time top 10 blockchain-token crowdsale campaigns. Qtum started the first day off fast, selling $10 million of its tokens in 90 minutes, said a statement.

Qtum is a hybrid blockchain application platform which combines a fork of bitcoin core, plus an "Account Abstraction Layer" allowing for multiple virtual machines, including the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), and a proof-of-stake consensus protocol. As such, Qtum lays claim to both Bitcoin's unspent transactions output (UXTO) approach, plus the account-based approach used for smart contracts on Ethereum.

The crowdsale, which was scheduled to last 30 days or until all tokens were sold, ended with the project raising over 11,000 bitcoins and 75,000 ether (ETH) in exchange for the 51 million Qtum tokens being distributed to the public. Instead of sending tokens to a single crowdsale address, Qtum enlisted six cryptocurrency exchanges/crowdfunding portals to conduct the sale in a coordinated fashion. The sites participating in the campaign were Bizhongchou, Yunbi, ICOAGE, Allcoin, ICO365, and BTC9.

Qtum tokens (QTUM) are the cryptographic software tokens used to engage with distributed applications and smart contracts on the Qtum platform. The will also serve as the staking token for the Qtum blockchain, as well as fuel for computational operations performed by the Qtum network. Details on the Qtum concept can be found in the Foundation's white papers.

Patrick Dai, co-founder of the Qtum Project, said: "We are confident that we can finish what we originally started a year ago. We hope our supporters can work with us to build the greatest blockchain platform for enterprise and consumer use cases. There are so many possibilities for the blockchain industry, with Qtum, we are just at the beginning of a long journey."

The total QTUM token supply will be allocated in three primary ways. Some 51% of QTUM tokens (51 million) will be distributed through the now-completed crowdsale. Funds raised this way will finance the Qtum Foundation's operation for the next four years, including development, administration, marketing, and financial/legal consulting.

Of the remaining 49%, 29% of QTUM tokens (29 million QTUM) will be allocated to community initiatives concerning business development, research, education, and market expansion. Some 20% will be distributed among founders, early backers, and the development team.

Jordan Earls, co-founder of the Qtum Project, said: "Since we began this project, I have been excited about its premise. Now, this excitement has been validated and shared by thousands of backers. Qtum will bring about a new blockchain and smart contract revolution and will bring together the many disparate communities into one common goal of action."

Qtum recently announced that one of the leading professional service providers, PwC, will support Qtum's efforts to help fuel blockchain adoption across global business sectors. Qtum has previously raised $1m from investors including Chen Weixing (Founder of Kuaidi), Star Xu (CEO of OkCoin), Anthony Di Iorio (Founder of Ethereum & Jaxx Blockchain Interface), Jeremy Gardner (co-founder of Augur), Bo Shen (Fenbushi Capital's Managing Partner), Roger Ver (First Investor in Bitcoin Companies), and Xiaolai Li (blockchain angel investor).