The Qortal Network will bring back individual sovereignty to a worldwide economy. Qortal will: 1) rebuild the Internet in an unhackable fashion, 2) provide a viable alternative to the devastation caused by exchange hacks and thefts, 3) build a new worldwide economic system based on honesty, openness, trust, democracy, and transparency, 4) implement a true-direct democratic system with a voting system where the individual's influence is weighted based on contribution, and 5) establish a fair system with room for everyone to earn their place in Qortal!

Let’s be honest, the world as we know it is full of corrupt leadership and inexcusable censored control over our lives. The time is past due for the people of the world to unite, live in harmony, and regain control of their lives as much as can reasonably be obtained. Qortal aims to put the power back in the hands of the people when it comes to banking, free trade, freedom of speech, freedom of information, freedom of censorship, right to privacy, and right to a truly democratic system where their vote matters. Welcome to Qortal. The first revolutionary concept that aims to achieve all of these rights within a platform and network utilizing blockchain technology.

The Founders of the Qortal Project understand that in a picture perfect world, everything would be 100% decentralized in all facets, although the reality is that limited governance is still needed as the world is truly full of bad actors. Therefore, Qortal’s goal is to focus on true democracy and as much decentralization as possible. Qortal’s core infrastructure has a codebase that is maintained by DevTeam Admins. This is strictly to ensure what code is added to the project’s core is truly honest and fair while combating the potential for bad actors to attack the codebase. With blockchain technology, the codebase is law and nothing can sabotage the laws written into the code! With that said, the focus of the development team is to develop a Voting System which allows the community to help drive the direction of the project.

Outside of the core development of Qortal, the platform is intended to provide a Groups system where anyone can create a Group and have admin privileges over their members and content. So although there will be no direct censorship over the Groups by the Dev Team, the admins of individual Groups will be empowered to choose what content they wish to see in their sub-community. The same goes for each individual using the platform, it should be up to the individual to decide what content they wish to see or not see. This is a very strong fundamental principle of the Founders as the focus is to combat and remove all concerns with Big Tech’s overreach and politically biased censorship powers.

The Dev Team Admins are a set of Founders and will eventually include hand-picked developers. These developers will be vetted for based on time and contribution, then propose to the community a vote for the developer to become a DevTeam Admin. A minimum of 60% approval is needed between the DevTeam Admins during a vote to authorize auto-updates to the chain. This is an important point to make in order for everyone to understand that the Founders aim to help direct the project in the proper direction, then ideally be able to elect more team members who can help further the project’s development with less need for the Founders as Qortal is designed to be a project that can outlive us all if done correctly.

The Founders also pay homage to the founding concepts behind the original blockchain project which brought this technology to the world’s attention - Bitcoin. To briefly recap, the original concepts behind the white paper of Bitcoin were to:

• Create electronic “cash” with an emphasis on anonymity and independence from conventional financial institutions
• Create a method for peer-to-peer transactions to take place on-chain securely
• Create a way for people to be rewarded for supporting the network
• Make all of this possible with basic computer systems

The problem that Bitcoin ultimately ran into was a flaw in the mining algorithm which was intended to create a fair rewards system but instead became unfair and dependent upon the individual’s financial capabilities. The original concept behind Bitcoin’s original white paper also included a concept that allowed people to mine BTC on their home computers as opposed to expensive hardware and power costs. Over time, however, that was destroyed by the invention of mining software that was much faster running on Graphics processors, then eventually running on ASIC machines, specifically built to mine Bitcoin’s mining algorithm. This led to the centralization of power on Bitcoin’s network and into the hands of people who have enough money to buy massive amounts of the ASIC machines as well as financial means to afford the massive power costs.

Qortal's 'minting' system resolves this flaw experienced with Bitcoin. Minting is the process of ‘finding blocks’ in the chain. Qortal does not use Proof of Work (PoW) or Proof of Stake (PoS) like most traditional chains, but instead uses ‘minting’. Qortal does not reward the block signer but rather rewards every minter who is online, synced, and minting! Say goodbye to the battle of MINING and welcome in a fair new system where everyone is rewarded for EVERY block minted. Minting does not use high amounts of electricity, and it also does not require the users wishing to mint, to have a huge amount of QORT or any other asset with which to do so. Instead, minters must prove themselves as a 'productive member' of the network, to be a minter. In other words, every account is rewarded for running a full node and supporting the network.

No user can obtain any influence in the Qortal Network by any other method other than obtaining sponsorship from another minter of Level 5+ or a Founder. Therefore the minters on Qortal are created by other minters and remain legitimate by continuing to run a minting node to support the network where their account gains in level and thus influence. This influence is then portrayed in the Voting System, so the only way influence can be gained on the network is by proving yourself as a legit network node and helping to process transactions. See the Sponsorship section for more info on this.

As the platform develops further, other methods of ‘leveling’ will be implemented. Other verified methods of supporting the system will be given the power to level and increase their vote weight on the voting system. For example, a system in the future that rewards content creators for creating good content, that the other users will view and upvote, could be used to create a second method of leveling wherein good content is rewarded. Another concept is that of users looking to make use of Qortal’s Trade Portal will bring liquidity to the platform. Liquidity providers could be rewarded in terms of leveling. There will be many other leveling methods devised in the future. At the moment the only method to leveling is the initial one of minting.

The beauty of blockchain technology and Qortal is that the chain cannot be stopped and the project will carry on without hardware dependency of any single person! Qortal is intended to outlive the Founders and become an unstoppable infrastructure for the world to adopt. Qortal will provide an opportunity for anyone in the world to get involved and be rewarded for their contribution to the network regardless of technical expertise, geographical location, or financial status. In theory, virtually any type of ethical online service and operating system could utilize the backbone infrastructure of Qortal.

With a vision of a platform designed to outlive us all, the current Dev Team is merely that - the current Dev Team. More qualified developers will be elected to join the Dev Team over time, and the Voting System will delegate a fair direction for the future team to move towards. Ultimately, Qortal aims to achieve a true-direct democratic system that is guided by the community members, implemented by the Dev Team, and not regulated by any outside government or third-party. Finally, a system that can be utilized worldwide that is built by the people, for the people!