Open source smart contracts platform Qtum is now an AWS partner

Amazon Web Services' (AWS) China division is partnering with public blockchain project Qtum.

The partnership sees the on-demand cloud computing giant working with a cryptocurrency project with a $325 million market capitalization, making it the 29th largest cryptocurrency, to develop blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) solutions for enterprises and developers.

The partnership will allow AWS users to develop and launch smart contracts "quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively" using an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), according to a press release issued by the Qtum team.

Simon Wang, head of territory business development at AWS China, confirmed the partnership, telling CoinDesk in an email: "Qtum are now an AWS technology partner and one of the partner network members."
 
Based in Singapore, Qtum, which raised $1 million last January from investors including Anthony Di Iorio, OKCoin CEO Star Xu, BitFund founder Xiaolai Li and Fenbushi partner Bo Shen, launched its public blockchain a year ago.

Qtum's AMI was listed on the Amazon Web Services marketplace in July, and since then, the group behind the cryptocurrency has been moving toward a broader technological partnership, Qtum's marketing director, John Scianna, told CoinDesk.

The two companies have been discussing this since April, he added.

Members of the Amazon Partner Network, according to the company's website, receive business, technical, sales, and marketing resources to help expand their businesses and support their customers. In case of Qtum, the startup and AWS will work together to get feedback from customers about the use cases most in demand and provide guidance to those clients that don't have much software development resources themselves, Mike Palencia, Qtum's chief information officer, told CoinDesk.

"We are going to work together [with Amazon] to contact different customers and clients. We're looking into use cases, and the best way to do it is to have a contact with companies who have those use cases," Palencia said. "Some clients have their own ideas and their own developers, and some of them want more support from us, want to talk to us directly."