Cryptocurrencies are hot right now, but the market is also extremely volatile.

Price fluctations are a major concern, as are issues with transaction times and a lack of real strategic partnerships.

Ubiquicoin — which announced its pre-ICO sale in January and has already raised over $5 million — is aiming to tackle these problems head-on.

First, it offers a digital currency that is backed by real assets, which means owners can transact with certainty of value. It also has an interesting two-coin system that addresses some of the other issues plaguing most cryptocurrencies.

The first of these coins is the Transaction Coin. This currency is backed by cash and cash equivalents and is assigned a stable value. It is explicitly used for transfers and the purchase or sale of goods and services. In essence, the Transaction Coin makes Ubiquicoin useful in real-world environments.

The second coin is the Progressive Coin, which will be available via the ICO. The Progressive Coin can be traded freely, has the potential for appreciation, and shares 20 percent of its revenue within the Ubiquicoin ecosystem. It is backed by a two-year financial guarantee of $1 per coin that is paid to coin holders in a triggering event.

Together, the two coins work to solve the price volatility problem for transactions while retaining the possibility of an upside for investors.

Ubiquicoin also uses a consensus mechanism called Proof of Majority that it promises will dramatically reduce latency. Interestingly, that also means lower computer processing requirements, which is welcome given the energy required to make some of the more established cryptocurrencies viable.

“The Proof of Majority consensus model solves the shortcomings of the Proof of Work model,” CEO and founder Jeff Mahony told me. “While maintaining the transparency and immutability of the blockchain, the Proof of Majority consensus model is designed to significantly reduce overall network energy, to ensure that all transactions are handled in sub-second time-frames, to include all active nodes in the process of validating and accepting a new block onto the blockchain, and to allow for the participation in the network of devices as small as smartphones.”

Proof of Majority doesn’t just speed transactions up; it also has a positive effect on transaction fees.

“To achieve this in its self-healing network, the Proof of Majority eliminates the arbitrary work required in the Proof of Work model that only the largest mining pools can accommodate, it removes the transaction fee component that has otherwise proven to deter miners from processing certain transactions, and it removes the requirement to pass large amounts of data among the nodes in the network,” Mahony said. “Rather than a single node being chosen to determine the next block on the blockchain, as is the case with Proof of Work, the Proof of Majority consensus model requires that all nodes produce a hash for the next block that includes all outstanding unconfirmed transactions. That hash is passed among the nodes until a consensus is achieved among all the nodes and the network thus converges on the next block for placement onto the blockchain.”

As a result of this system, transactions happen in less than a second, which is critical to making any digital currency practical for real commerce.

“Ubiquicoin’s roadmap includes a solution for brick-and-mortar payment-centric options,” Mahony said. “Retailers around the world need to address the friction points in their enterprises continually, and the point of sale is typically at the top of the list. Ubiquicoin will help retailers at the point of sale with reduced processing times and reduced costs to the retailer and the consumer.”

As of today, the Ubiquicoin pre-ICO sale of Progressive Coin has 10 days left before it closes.