Qtum’s 2026: What Have We Been Up To? 

Hey, Qtum community! We figured it was time to sit down and give you a rundown of everything that's been going on since December. Spoiler: It's been a busy few months. Like, really busy. So grab a coffee and let's discuss what’s going to happen at Qtum this year, and what’s coming up and what has been accomplished in the last 6 months.

So what should I expect to see launched on Qtum? 

Circle Bridged USDC Standard

This set of smart contracts provided by Circle allows the burning and minting of USDC to happen cross-chain using a bridge. No more liquidity pools or hokey solutions, users simply send their $USDC from Ethereum to Qtum and back using Metamask.

When to expect this? Summer 2026. The audits are all finished and it’s just a matter of deploying it.

Qtum MetaMask Snap & Qtum Bridge

This “snap” just clicks into your current MetaMask install, giving you access to Qtum and QRC-20 tokens without needing to download an entirely new ecosystem. It has all the hooks required to interface with the Qtum bridge, along with other web3 dapps like DeFi and AI image generators etc. We have this product audited by Hacken and ready to release. The bridge has been audited by Certik and has been tested in a community event.

When will this be live? Summer 2026. The bridge we can just deploy ourselves, but the MetaMask Snap we need to reach out to Consensys to get it updated on the Snap Directory. We’re also in the process of getting this done.

Qtum Text-to-Video 

Qtum.ai just got a massive upgrade with a full text-to-video application. We currently offer Seedance 1, 1.5, and 2.0 along with open source models like HappyHorse. This is the first Qtum AI application that we will charge for. Users have the option to pay in Qtum currently, with the option to pay in Qtum USDC once we online the bridge. We will also put a partner widget on the site that allows users to buy Qtum with a credit card if they’re not familiar with using a CEX or DEX. Users will need to sign in with their existing Google accounts, or with the Qtum MetaMask Snap. We are now working to expand the functionality of this service by offering more open source models, along with tools that will help create short dramas and other videos longer than 10 seconds.

When to expect this? It’s already deployed in beta, you can see it here: https://qtum.ai/studio/video Expanded functionality is being worked at right now.

Qtum Router

Similar to OpenRouter, we will build and deploy an API that allows users to access Qtum services simply for a fee. This will be a fork of OnlyRouter.ai only the payment method will use Qtum and eventually Qtum USDC. Qtum Router will provide text, image, video, audio inference services. After it's launched, we plan to release a video agent for making long AI videos by using the inference service from the router. Users of OpenClaw who are looking for more utility to power their bots will have another option to choose from now.

When to expect this? We are in the beginning stages of cloning and deploying this. This should arrive in 2026.

Updated Qtum Qurator Image Generator

We updated the models for Qtum Qurator and also the speed in which images are generated. It’s free and simple to use. Just like Qtum Text-to-Video, you don’t need to register or sign up for anything, just start generating pictures. 

https://qtum.ai/studio/qurator

Qtum Web3 Dapps in Development

To support our upcoming USDC and MetaMask Snap launch, we’ve spoken with some third party studios who have agreed to develop some dapps and operate them on the Qtum blockchain. Coming out in 2026 there will be a decentralized exchange, prediction market, and a couple small web based games. We recently deployed some simple example dapps, like a wheel spin game and a dice simulator. This allows developers to see how dapps are deployed on Qtum, and how they work with the MetaMask Snap.

When will we see the Dex, prediction market, and games? Later in 2026 depending on the audits.

Here’s a recap of the last 6 months below…

The Halvening 

First things first, the event that only happens every 4 years, Qtum halvening. On November 30, 2025, Qtum hit its second-ever halving. Block rewards dropped from 0.5 QTUM to 0.25 QTUM, and our annual inflation rate is now sitting at roughly 0.25%. 

The next Qtum halvening should happen around December 2029, dropping the inflation rate down from 0.25% per year to 0.125%

The Hard Fork 

Right after the halving, we shipped our 50th release, the v29.1 hard fork, which went live on January 11, 2026. Here's what came with it:

• Stronger privacy options

• BLS12-381 precompile for ZK rollups

• Bitcoin Core 27–29 upgrades bundled in

• Faster transaction propagation and fewer orphaned blocks

• Ephemeral dust support

• CMake build system

• Better Tor binding behavior

• UPnP removed and replaced with PCP / NAT-PMP

The ZK rollup support is worth highlighting. It's more impactful than it might sound on paper. ZK rollups open the door to powerful Layer 2 scaling solutions that can dramatically increase throughput for trading, gaming, file hosting, cross-chain bridges, and more.

Wallets also benefit indirectly; a stronger node network means faster and more reliable transaction propagation across the board.

Read the blog post here. 

Upgrade your node to v29.1 here. 

The MetaMask Snap & Bridge 

This one's been in the works for a while, and it's nearly there. Our updated MetaMask Snap went through its final audit stages with Hacken, one of the leading Web3 security firms. The Snap gives MetaMask users the ability to store and manage QTUM and interact with dApps without needing a separate wallet. We’ll reach out to Consensys to get this updated on the Snap Directory now that the audit is complete. 

We also built a dedicated bridge between Ethereum and Qtum specifically to support it, with Circle USDC contracts deployed. 

We've already seen genuine developer interest coming in for dapp development on Qtum. If you're looking to port an existing dapp or launch something new, testnet tokens are available at our faucet.

Qtum.ai  AI Image Generator 

https://qtum.ai/studio/qurator

Traffic to qtum.ai has been picking up lately. We've been building out our AI platform, powered by the GPU farm we've been growing. In fact, we're adding more GPU's to keep up with demand and speed things up.

We deployed an AI Image generator quite a while ago, but the open source models we originally launched with were janky. We updated and refreshed the models early in 2025 and it’s a lot faster, with less weird behavior. For example, there’s a lot less pictures of people with 6 fingers, or text that’s just garbled.

There’s multiple models to choose from with Qurator, and you can choose the quality and the dimensions of the picture. It’s completely free to use and doesn’t require that you sign into anything, it also doesn’t follow you around with cookies. This is refreshing, as you can just load up the site and generate as many pictures as you want until you get something you can work with.

Training an LLM on Qtum 

We're training a large language model specifically on Qtum so it can accurately answer technical questions about our blockchain. It's a work in progress, but you can already chat with it at qtum.ai/chat/solstice.

Qtum Ally Desktop AI Agent 

And then there's Qtum Ally, our desktop AI agent that we dropped in late 2025. Ally runs locally on your machine (Windows and Mac) and gives you access to 12 different LLMs in a single app. 

It's built around the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which means you can build powerful automated workflows and agents without needing to code everything from scratch.

Hong Kong Web3 Festival

Miguel Palencia, Qtum Co-Founder, spoke on stage at Web3 Festival 2026 in Hong Kong about AI, April 20–23, at the HKCEC. If you want to check out the speech, check out the Qtum Facebook page at https://facebook.com/qtumofficial 

  We also sponsored the event as a Platinum Partner!

So Yeah... We've Been Busy

A halving, a major hard fork, a MetaMask Snap nearly out the door, GPU farms, AI tools, a custom LLM in training, and a co-founder taking the stage in Hong Kong all in the span of a few months.

— The Qtum Team