Quant (QNT)

Quant (QNT) is the utility token of Quant Network, a London-based technology company whose Overledger software lets banks, businesses and developers connect their applications to many different blockchains through a single interface. QNT is used to pay for and access Overledger licences and services, and it is also traded as a cryptocurrency. Its supply is fixed at 14,612,493 tokens, and no new QNT can be created.

QNT is not the coin of its own blockchain. It is an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum Blockchain. Overledger itself is middleware: a software layer that sits above existing public networks and the private ledgers used by banks, rather than a ledger in its own right. Quant is usually grouped with projects working on blockchain interoperability, alongside cross-chain services such as Chainlink (LINK).

Think of a universal travel adapter. A traveller with one laptop plug meets dozens of different wall sockets around the world, and the adapter lets the same plug work everywhere. Blockchains are similar: each has its own rules, data formats and programming tools, so an application written for one usually cannot talk to another. Overledger is meant to be the adapter, letting a bank or a software developer build one application that can read from and write to several ledgers at once.

QNT is the ticket that pays for using the adapter. Companies that license the software end up paying in QNT, and developers who build on the platform need to hold some. Because the total number of tokens was capped when they were created, the supply never grows. What changes over time is how much of it is locked up for use and how much is in the hands of traders.

Quant Network was founded in 2015 in London by Gilbert Verdian, a technologist with a background in information security and payments. The company published its Overledger white paper and sold QNT to the public in an initial coin offering in 2018. The team first minted about 24 million tokens, then destroyed roughly 9.4 million unsold ones in September 2018, which left the fixed supply of 14,612,493 QNT; see burning tokens.

Since then Quant has sold mainly to banks, payment firms and public bodies rather than to retail users. It and the software company R3 were the technology providers for the experimentation phase of the UK Regulated Liability Network, a UK Finance project that ran until mid-2024 and tested whether commercial bank money, tokenized deposits and central bank money could move together on shared ledgers. Quant built the orchestration and programming layer, and the project's report was published in September 2024. In 2025 the company introduced Overledger Fusion, which it describes as a "layer 2.5" network that links several ledgers, and presented QuantNet, a settlement network for tokenized assets aimed at banks.

Overledger connects to each supported network through its own connector and offers developers a common application programming interface, so a single instruction can be translated into the format each ledger expects. Applications built on it are called multi-ledger decentralised applications, or mDApps, and can run logic that spans several chains at once, for example checking a payment on one network before releasing an asset on another.

Quant says this design lets customers avoid being tied to a single network and reduces reliance on crypto bridges, which have been a frequent target of hacks. Overledger supports public networks such as Ethereum and the XRP Ledger, as well as permissioned blockchains run by groups of banks. Quant has also marketed it for central bank digital currency projects, where a central bank's ledger would need to work with commercial banks' systems.

QNT has no mining, staking issuance or inflation. Every token that will ever exist was created in 2018, and the company has said no more will be issued. Market trackers have at times shown slightly higher totals, close to 15 million, because they count the supply in different ways, but Quant's own figure is 14,612,493. The token has three main roles:

• Licences. Enterprises pay for Overledger licences. Under Quant's model, fees paid in ordinary currency are used to acquire QNT, which is then locked for a period, usually a year.
• Developer access. Developers and operators of network gateways who build on or run parts of the platform are required to hold or lock QNT.
• Trading. QNT is listed on large centralized exchanges and is bought and sold as an investment, which accounts for most of its day-to-day activity.

Overledger's core software is proprietary rather than open source, which is unusual in crypto and means outsiders cannot fully inspect how it works. Critics also question how closely demand for QNT tracks real use of the platform, since much of Quant's business consists of enterprise licences and pilots, and many bank pilots never reach full production. Like most tokens outside Bitcoin and Ethereum, QNT's price has been volatile and is driven more by trading sentiment than by measured usage. Holders also depend heavily on a single private company: if Quant changed its licensing model or lost customers, the token's main purpose could weaken.

• Quant Network
• Overledger developer documentation