The new year is here, and the Qtum team has been steadily working to bring you some significant updates. First, we would like everyone to know that we continue to work towards completing the 2021 Roadmap. We currently have all of the information, and we are working on the format, design, and final approval. We appreciate your continued patience and understanding. We are taking the extra time to ensure a better and more accurate 2021 Roadmap.
The first month of the year has blown by with so much excitement in the industry. We can see this year may not be like any other. Qtum starts the year by reassessing plans, working on the roadmap and some cool announcements, as well as laying out the path for the new year. The highlight of the month has to go to QiSwap and the Qi token airdrop.
What is QiSwap?
QiSwap is a 3rd party decentralized exchange building on the Qtum blockchain to help suit DeFi applications’ needs. QiSwap was built and originated from Uniswap smart contracts and has been reconfigured to work specifically for the Qtum, which brings benefits to the DEX. No need to worry about these smart contracts because they will be audited entirely before mainnet launches.
Since QiSwap runs on Qtum, swapping tokens on QiSwap is very easy, fast, and inexpensive. QiSwap’s DEX offers low fees, fast, and secured transactions. QiSwap is even making it possible for anyone to create and list their very own QRC20 token with an easy to use interface. QiSwap is working on instructional videos that will help ensure minimal issues using the new Dex and streamline the ease of use. Qiswap is also offering an airdrop to the Qtum community in February (this month), check out those details below, or in this video:
Neutron Updates
Towards the end of the month, Qtum Co-Founder Jordan Earls wrote an informative blog about the possible success or failure of a new platform when coming into production for the first time. Earls describes how Neutron is being designed to allow other blockchains and layer 2 protocols to integrate Neutron via hard forks, soft forks, and even no fork options. Therefore, we invite everyone to help build it.
Read Jordan’s thoughts and plans for Neutron:
Why new platforms soar or sink, and where Neutron stands
How does a platform succeed?
earlz.medium.com
Super Staker Status Tool
Attention Super Stakers, here is a new super staker status tool that could ensure smooth staking for you and your delegators. Not only is there a blog that describes the tool and its features, but there is a video tutorial as well. So if you are running a super staker and care about the performance of your staker, then take the time and read the blog and follow the video.
Video Tutorial:
Faster Blocks Incoming (Hard Fork)
The Reduced Block Spacing Hard fork development work is still on the way. The team continues to push closer to the hard fork with tons of coding and testing. There also have been some blogs about the upcoming hard fork, trying to explain everything in detail. The Qtum development team is focused on 32-second blocks with two intervals of 16 seconds. Sounds confusing, don’t worry, Jackson describes block spacing, how it works with intervals, and some current test results in this series of updates.
You can start reading part one called “Into the Fast Lane, Reduced Block Time Part 1” & Part 2 “Into the Fast Lane: Reduced Block Time — Part 2”.
Fourth Quarter Expenditure Report
The Fourth Quarter’s Expenditure Report has been released and has information that the Qtum Foundation provides for insight and transparency. This report covers the fourth quarter and gives an overview of the whole year.
Gate.io Margin Trading
Gate.io announced that it had added Livepeer (QTUM) margin trading (QTUM/USDT), allowing up to 3X leverage. At the same time, margin lending and borrowing of the coin are available. Anyone will be able to lend their QTUM to earn passive income.
Read about it here:
Bitbank Listing
Bitbank announced the Qtum listing and started to be available from Wednesday, January 27, 2021, Japan Standard Time (JST). Pairs offered will be QTUM/JPY and QTUM/BTC.
Listing details can be found here:
Technical Updates
Technical Developments and new pull requests added to the Qtum Github this month are as follows.
Backport bloom filter PR #889
Add bloom field to gettransactionreceipt RPC PR #888
Add option to install the Qtum ledger app to Nano S PR #887
Current work on implementing bloom filters PR #886
Added GUI support for hardware wallet PR #885
