What is Quant Network (QNT)? (2024)

Nathan Phillips

8 min read

Feb 9, 2024

Overledger

Overledger allows you to build multi-blockchain and multi-non-blockchain apps, or MDapps (Muti-chain Decentralized Applications). It not only connects blockchains, but it can connect any distributed ledger and traditional databases.

How does it do that?

Overledger achieves this by providing a common set of rules. These common set of rules then sorts data into a shared data layer that underpins the transaction layer of the various connected networks and systems.

The shared data layer handles logic and is separate to the blockchain transaction layer, allowing more flexibility, rather than building directly on the blockchain transaction layer. This seems to be very much inspired by TCP-IP.

The various connected networks and systems can then use the shared data layer for ordering, signature identification, communication and settlement.

Overledger’s Interoperability Mechanism In-depth

This really opens up a world of possibility. With Quant, you can create nuanced, MDapps, you can do DeFi with non-smart contract cryptos, you can even connect with non-blockchain systems.

Even I think this is a little insane, and I’m not even done explaining all the other capabilities yet. But the key here is how much flexibility it provides.

I will not get into the nitty gritty details of how this technology works, but here is a general overview.

For example, let’s say you build a smart contract for Bitcoin on Overledger. The smart contract has a message which says, Bob pays Y BTC to Charlotte only if Alice pays X Ethereum to Bob.

You put this smart contract in your MDapp and you set a filter on Overledger to look out for “Alice pays X Ethereum to Bob” in the shared data layer.

When this message is seen by the smart contract, it is activated and writes a transaction message, Bob pays Y BTC to Charlotte. This transaction flows down the layers to the actual transaction layer of BTC.

Then a BTC node receives this transaction message and submits a message for this transaction this to be appended in the next block, following BTC’s consensus algorithm.

There you go, you’ve just given Bitcoin smart contracts and interoperated with Ethereum. This is of course an oversimplification and it can do a lot more than this, but the general idea is that data and logic flows freely through the various networks via the shared data layer.

Easier Multi-chain Decentralized Applications

Without Overledger, developers would need to build in processes directly into the transaction layer of the underlying networks and systems. This is a massive technical challenge due to the requirement of domain knowledge necessary within each network to actually deliver this.

Overledger completely bypasses this.

You can use Overledger to create MDapps which use several different nodes on different blockchains and even legacy databases.

Cross-chain Smart Contracts

Overledger enables interoperability at greater complexity than most other solutions in the market. It is capable of more than just technical interoperability (e.g. trading BTC for ETH on Binance).

It is capable of syntactic, structural, cross-domain and semantic interoperability.

The main advantage of this is that it allows smart contracts between blockchains to seamlessly communicate with each other. And Quant Network seems to be the only project which actually addresses this at the moment.

You see, most blockchains were originally designed to only support simple asset transfers, such as paying someone in BTC. And most interoperability solutions today only deal with these simple asset transfers.

But for true interoperability, there needs to be some ability to enforce a smart contract on one blockchain if a condition presents itself on another blockchain.

This is hard to do, as blockchains generally are not aware of what is happening on another blockchain.

Give Smart Contracts to Non-Smart Contract Capable Blockchains

Now, with the two benefits above alone, Quant Network is already an incredible project.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Overledger gives smart contract capability to blockchains which do not have smart contracts. For example, you can give Bitcoin smart contracts.

Overledger’s Privacy

In general, all transactions or data on blockchains are hashed via a hashing algorithm. This means whilst you can access the hashed data, you can’t tell what it actually is.

So, Overledger can’t actually read the contents of the messages.

It just scans the hash of the message and passes it back and forth between the user and network.

Overledger, in fact, takes this a step further and allows MDapp developers to hide hashes completely, but in a clever way where you don’t realise it was hidden in the first place.

Node Service Provider

Now although Overledger is not a blockchain, the system runs nodes in various blockchains. This is how the Overledger interoperability mechanism actually carries out its job.

It’s very common to run nodes, and one example would be, if you buy BTC on Binance, you are most likely using a node managed by Binance.

Nodes can be run by anyone, as long as you have the hardware and expertise. It’s kind of like running a server, and the more nodes there are, the more decentralized a blockchain becomes.

As a Dapp developer or blockchain network, it is actually in your own interest to run your own nodes. But since Overledger runs nodes, when you do decide to create an MDapp, you can leverage the nodes already on there.

For example, if you run BTC nodes, and want to build an MDapp that interoperates with ETH, you can simply use the ETH nodes on Overledger. You don’t have to set up on-site ETH nodes.

In this way, Overledger also acts as a node service provider.

Decentralized Node Marketplace

Furthermore, Quant Network doesn’t only let you use their own nodes, they let you use any node that is listed on the Overledger Network.

For example, if Organization A installs Overledger on their BTC and ETH nodes.

Then Organization B can decide to use the nodes of Organization A, Quant Network’s managed nodes and their own on-site nodes.

And not only blockchain nodes, you can list distributed ledgers and non-blockchain databases.

This is achieved via Overledger’s gateways. Gateways make your nodes and databases accessible to anyone if you give them permission to. You can then charge them a fee for using your nodes as a gateway operator. This opens up a new revenue stream for companies of all types.

For example, Organization A runs a node in BTC and Organization B runs nodes on ETH. Organization B wants to run an Mdapp using BTC. Organization B can use Organization A’s BTC node via the gateway and pay them fees for it.

Another example, a large enterprise wants to sell access to their databases. You can list them on Overledger. Other organizations on Overledger can then access the database for a fee.

So, the Overledger network is also the world’s first decentralized node service provider. There is not much out there like it at the moment.

It not only provides decentralization in a heavily centralized area of the industry, but it creates a marketplace for nodes.

New Revenue Streams

The mechanisms above allow new revenue streams to be generated by both MDapp developers and Gateway operators via processing transactions generated by other users on Overledger.

On top of this, $QNT holders can stake their $QNT on a listed gateway and start earning yield on it. The staked $QNT adds to the overall security of the network.

Additional Features

Now, there are several other features that we unfortunately didn’t have time for in this article, but we will briefly go through them here.

The Mdapp store, you can think of being similar to an iOS app store, but for Mdapps.
Multi-chain oracles give flexibility to use multiple oracles, which are used to retrieve and validate real world off-chain data. This helps solve the oracle problem.
Data and API marketplace. You can think of being similar to the node marketplace, but for non-blockchain systems.
Least cost routing is a mechanism which automatically switches your gateway to always use the most cost efficient gateways.
ODAP and ISO20022 we will cover later in the article.

Thanks all for reading. Any feedback or comments, drop them below!

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