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July 09, 20244 mins read

June 2024 Qtum Development and Community Updates

Qtum-Etherum Bridge Update

What are we doing, and why are we doing this?

We are working on a bridge that will allow Circle USDC and other Ethereum ERC-20 assets to be bridged to the Qtum blockchain. This will enable DeFi and other Web3 technology to operate better on Qtum, even more than before.

Bridge Test Network

This infrastructure includes bridge validators and a web frontend that interfaces with a Qtum-designed “MetaMask Snap.”

Bridge Audits

To reach this point, the source code for the bridge and the “MetaMask Snap” wallet had to be submitted to 2 auditing companies. The bridge source code and validators were submitted to Certik, and no major security issues were found.

Other issues they pointed out were responded to by the Qtum team and accepted by Certik. The Certik audit has been submitted to the Qtum team, and we are waiting to make the results public. We will do this once the “MetaMask Snap” wallet audit is available to publish so we can release them both simultaneously.

Qtum MetaMask Snap Wallet

Sayfer has completed the Qtum “MetaMask Snap” audit and sent it to the Qtum team for review. Typically, this process works in that the team gets access to the report, and we have a set amount of time to submit any necessary fixes before the audit becomes public. In this case, no issues whatsoever were found with the “Snap,” so expect to see both the Certik and Sayfer audit reports released as we progress to the main network rollout of the bridge.

Our goal with the MetaMask Snap is to have the wallet included in the “Snap Directory” that can be found here: MetaMask Snaps Directory

This MetaMask Snap acts as an extension of the main MetaMask wallet. This means if you currently use MetaMask and want it to support and store Qtum, all you have to do is enable the “Snap” from the Snap Directory. This will also allow you to interface with the Qtum-Ethereum Bridge and other Web3 technology, like DeFi liquidity pools, etc.

Circle Bridged USDC Standard Deployment

In late 2023, Circle released a set of smart contracts that provided a more secure and “common sense” method of moving USDC between EVM blockchains. This is more secure because it actually controls the minting and burning of USDC tokens between EVM chains, as opposed to “liquidity bridges” that held onto massive amounts of locked tokens, which hackers were constantly draining. You can read more about these sets of contracts here

Qtum is an EVM blockchain, so this made a lot of sense as we don’t have to rely on third-party liquidity pools to deploy a cross-chain bridge. These contracts have been successfully deployed on the Qtum Bridge Test Network and have been used to initiate USDC transfers from Sepolia to Qtum Testnet and back.

This is a more common sense approach because the third party involved is Circle themselves, and not some liquidity pool provider that appeared suddenly.

Qtum Bridge Remaining ToDo’s

  • Some core infrastructure work (Servers, SSL, domain names, easy stuff)

  • Updated documentation, user guides, videos, etc

  • Updated Graphics for bridge interface

  • Launch a public-facing bridge test network and hold a community event for load testing and community feedback.

  • Submit MetaMask Snap Sayfer audit to Consensys for review. This is required for the Qtum wallet to be featured in the MetaMask Snap Directory.

The remaining work is mostly straightforward. The most challenging portion was getting the code ready to audit. What remains now is making everything public and throwing a community party to get people stress-testing the bridge.

FoxWallet Now Supports Qtum Offline Staking!

FoxWallet

The June 18th FoxWallet update allows Qtum offline staking. Fox Wallet also supports QtumBRC-20, Qtum Testnet, and QRC20. This wallet is available on mobile or through the Chrome extension.

Qurate2earn Contest Winners

meme

In May, we rolled out the Qurate2Earn contest in support of Qtum AI and asked you all to make memes using our text-to-image generator Qtum Qurator. Users were asked to incorporate the results generated with AI into some existing meme templates or memes of their creation. The theme was “MEME CITY”, and contestants were free to interpret it creatively. Here’s the list of all winners, and again, congratulations:

AddressesMeme turkey

Warm Regards, The Qtum Team.

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