Share this article

Qtum Lets Users Deploy a Full Blockchain Node on Google's Cloud Platform

Qtum releases a new instant virtual machine service on Google's Cloud Platform.

Updated Sep 13, 2021, 9:08 a.m. Published May 2, 2019, 6:40 p.m.
Qtum lead developer Jordan Earls (CoinDesk archives)
Qtum lead developer Jordan Earls (CoinDesk archives)

Qtum, a project that began as a bitcoin-blockchain hybrid, is expanding its reach by adding Google's Cloud Platform to its list of software partners.

The offering is simple: a $15 per month virtual machine that users can spin up and run instantly on the Cloud Platform. The software, available here, allows users to "develop and deploy [their] own smart contracts from [the] ready-to-use GCP VM featuring Qtum core, soldity, solar (smart contract deployment tool) and Qmix web IDE."

STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the The Protocol Newsletter today. See all newsletters

The key, according of CIO Miguel Palencia, is simplicity.

"Where launching a node was once an intensive and complex process, Qtum's new developer suite introduces helpful shortcuts and tools to make it faster and easier," he said. "With a more accessible technology, we hope to open up and expand the Qtum community to include people with a broader range of experience — from experts to the everyday user."

The code available on Google Cloud is a copy of the Qtum compute engine and offers a developer environment and full node on the Qtum blockchain. Users can also use it as a testbed for code forks, dapps, or staking.

This announcement in no way makes Qtum an official Google partner as anyone - from purveyors of the CMS Wordpress to creators Ethereum dev kits - can launch a product on the Cloud Platform. It simply makes it easier to spin up a Qtum virtual machine for a few dollars per month.

The Qtum token has a market cap of $232,216,410 and is currently trading. The company raised $1 million in 2017 and has kept building in the intervening three years.

More For You

Protocol Research: GoPlus Security

GP Basic Image

What to know:

  • As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
  • GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
  • Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.

More For You

Solana’s Drift Launches v3, With 10x Faster Trades

Drift (b52_Tresa/Pixabay)

With v3, the team says that about 85% of market orders will fill in under half a second, and liquidity will deepen enough to bring slippage on larger trades down to around 0.02%.

What to know:

  • Drift, one of the largest perpetuals trading platforms on Solana, has launched Drift v3, a major upgrade meant to make on-chain trading feel as fast and smooth as using a centralized exchange.
  • The new version will deliver 10-times faster trade execution thanks to a rebuilt backend, marking the largest performance jump the project has made so far.