Qtum, a blockchain project that aims to maintain compatibility with existing processes from Bitcoin and Ethereum, has raised $1 million in funding, CoinDesk reported.

According to the whitepaper, The Quantum Blockchain or ‘Qtum’ is a combination of Bitcoin Core, Proof-of-Stake, and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The end product, Qtum Core, will allow smart contracts to execute on a Proof-of-Stake consensus model. This ecosystem was designed to provide a familiar environment for Smart Contract and Decentralized Application developers.

The project has received support from a number of notable entrepreneurs in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space including ethereum founder Anthony Di Iorio, OKCoin CEO Star Xu, BitFund founder Xiaolai Li and Fenbushi partner Bo Shen.

Patrick Dai, founder of the Qtum Foundation, told CoinDesk that the amount raised will help the team to prepare the infrastructure required to sell the tokens in a public initial coin offering (ICO), or a public sale of unique cryptographic tokens to investors.

"We raised the money to prove that our approach is right. We used the money to do the minimum viable product. The testnet is live now, but it is private, it is already working”, he said, adding that the Qtum Foundation could seek to raise up to $10m in the token offering.

The project kicked off in March 2016 as a proof-of-concept, and so far it has completed the design of the Qtum model – the world’s first digital currency that can execute smart contracts with a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism based on an Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) model, as reported by Bitcoin Magazine.

Earlier this month, Qtum said that the team is currently working to make new wallets for desktop and mobile Qtum users. In addition, it is also working to merge the EVM and PoS branches of Qtum. It further added:

“We are extensively testing the Qtum implementation. In addition to Bitcoin and EVM automated tests, we are writing a Qtum specific test suite. Other than automated testing, manual testing is currently taking place as well. After in-house testing, we will request external code reviews and tests from independent software developers and companies.”

Qtum said that after the initial Qtum prototype passes testing procedures, it will be time to launch the Qtum testnet, which has been codenamed ‘Sparknet’. This would mark the final real world test before the official release.