QRL The Next Chapter

I am delighted to announce the appointment of a new operational manager to the QRL project.

Please warmly welcome Iain Wood (Discord User: @uricon) who has been given a broad brush to drive the project in a new strategic direction with a strong emphasis upon: community growth, team expansion, increasing liquidity provision, encouraging projects to build on QRL, and of course rolling out the final hard fork in the roadmap as soon as is practical!

He has been an active member of the community since the very start and is hugely passionate about QRL and the post-quantum threat. I have instructed him to work collaboratively with our diverse community and to forge alliances where possible with friendly organisations and projects in the space.

With QRL mainnet currently at blockheight 2,884,034 (at the time of writing) it is hard to believe the project has been in existence since early 2016. QRL has come a long way from the early unoptimised client I wrote in buggy python on my trusty MacBook Pro. Though now a bit older and greying, I remain as staunch a supporter for public blockchain ledgers as when I first discovered bitcoin in 2012. It seems obvious at this point that such ledgers will gradually swallow up and move value in ever increasing amounts in the coming decades. Blockchain is firmly here to stay (and probably what we have seen so far is merely the tip of the metaphorical iceberg).

Strange then that the vast majority of this exploding asset class remains completely unguarded against a quantum singularity - now 7 years on from the inception of the QRL. I have expended thousands of hours of thought, worry, and of course enjoyment working on the QRL over the years. From days poring over and writing code, to tens of thousands of messages with the core team (I’m looking at you my second wife @Cyyber :-)) and community, to cancelling family birthday plans to deal with a zero day exploit, to exchange listings and constant exchange drama, conferences, meeting and chatting with many of you in our amazing community over the years, incredibly stressful planned and emergency hard forks, there has certainly not been a dull moment.

But in that time I have also added to my family with three wonderful children and continued my surgical practice. It is time for me to rebalance my working life and let someone new take the reins and grow the project.

It is difficult and emotive to let go of something you created and conceived but now is the right time for me to step back into a purely administrative role within the foundation. I am looking forward to observing the project complete its roadmap and cannot wait to see what comes next - Q1/2 2024 looks to be incredibly exciting for the QRL.

Good luck, Iain. You can do it!