Fantom is a proof-of-stake (PoS) layer-1 network built on the aBFT consensus protocol that boasts fast, cheap, and scalable transactions with one-second finality.
Ethereum’s extreme popularity among developers and dApp users has exposed its significant limitations, including high gas costs and network congestion. With these hurdles still not out of the way, various platforms are seizing this opportunity to solve these pressing problems by delivering solutions even before the blockchain giant can launch its forthcoming upgrade.
Table of Contents
Background
Fantom, a platform that aims to deal with Ethereum’s current limitations, was built to unlock blockchain’s “suppressed” potentials by being faster, cheaper, and more scalable, all while being secure.
It believes that it’s a fitting mission to deliver what blockchain developers and dApp users really need because having this initiative will always have a good ripple effect across the industry.
What is Fantom (FTM)?
Fantom is a proof-of-stake (PoS) layer-1 platform built on an aBFT consensus protocol that boasts fast, cheap, and scalable transactions capable of absolute finality, which makes every single transaction irreversible, a major advantage it holds against probabilistic finalities found in other networks.
Speed, Scalability, and Independence
It can execute an average of 1-second transaction finality and is capable of thousands of transactions per second.
The platform’s speed is powered by a technology called DAG or Directed Acyclic Graph that displays Fantom’s blockchain transaction histories as a hashgraph. The platform’s blockchain nodes are capable of validating transactions independently and eliminate the need to deal with a queue of transactions.
Validating transactions on Bitcoin and Ethereum can take several minutes, while Fantom can finish them in merely two seconds. Furthermore, Fantom is not all about speed as it can also scale to hundreds of nodes without any trade-offs in its performance.
Security, Ethereum Compatibility
Lachesis is an aBFT (asynchronous byzantine fault-tolerant) consensus mechanism that deploys high-level security to distributed networks.
One major advantage it holds is that it can operate securely and efficiently even if ⅓ of its transaction data is fraudulent or suspicious.
Lachesis is capable of scaling its transaction throughput while keeping its instant finality intact and protecting the network from the risk of centralization.
And even though it’s positioned to be an alternative to Ethereum, it remains compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)
FTM Token and Utilities
FTM Token is Fantom’s native token with the major purpose of securing the platform’s PoS consensus mechanism.
To become a validator in Fantom, one needs to hold a minimum of 3,175,000 FTM tokens, and stakers are required to lock up their tokens. By participating in either of these roles, participants help secure Fantom’s system further, and as a reward, they will receive exclusive incentives and fee payments.
Currently, the biggest markets for FTM are Binance, FTX, and KuCoin, on top of that, the token is supported by cross-chain bridges, including Multichain and Wormhole.
FTM, is also available as an ERC-20 token and BEP-20, meaning it can be traded on Ethereum’s Uniswap and Binance Smart Chain‘s PancakeSwap.
Payments
FTM is perfect for sending and receiving payments because it seamlessly uses Fantom’s trinity of fast finality, low fees, and high throughput.
What’s even more amazing is that money transactions on the platform only take a second and only cost $0.0000001!
Network Fees
FTX can also be used for platform fees, and the required fees wouldn’t be considered too high by participants who genuinely want to join Fantom for good reasons.
But these fees are certainly high for bad actors who only aim to exploit the system and deploy an attack.
By preventing bad actors from entering the platform, Fantom reduces the risk of receiving spam that can affect the performance of its system.
On-Chain Governance
FTM is necessary for on-chain governance because Fantom is a decentralized platform whose direction depends on stakers’ votes.
The token is an ‘entry pass’ for everyone who wants to participate in voting for Fantom’s improvements and changes.
FTM Staking
By staking FTM tokens, holders can earn around 4% APY on their capital and increase it up to 13% when they commit to full-year staking.
Fantom will provide FTM stakers with a synthetic asset called “sFTM,” which they can use inside the platform’s DeFi ecosystem.
Stakers are also allowed to claim their rewards every few hours, which they can compound for bigger returns.
Fluid Staking
Fluid Staking is a model used by Fantom that allows stakers to choose their preferred lock-up periods between 0 to 365 days.
The longer the period stakers choose, the bigger the rewards they can get, a mechanism that champions platform sustainability and fair distribution of rewards.
Also, in the Fluid Staking model, stakers’ APY is affected by three major factors:
- APY goes up in proportion with the staker’s lock-up period
- APY goes down in proportion with the average lock-up period of all stakers
- APY goes down in proportion with the entire amount of FTM staked by Fantom stakers.
Projects on Fantom
Fantom Finance
Fantom Finance is a DeFi platform that provides a simplified process of trading, lending, and borrowing synthetic assets.
It provides instant liquidity and 0 slippages and allows users to access more than 160 tokens with high trading volume.
Users simply need to add their tokens to the DeFi platform’s liquidity pool to start earning at a transparent and verifiable APR.
F Mint
F Mint allows platform users to mint fUSD (pegged 1:1 to US dollar), using their FTM tokens.
They can rebalance anytime by increasing and removing FTM tokens and repay their fUSD anytime they are ready to redeem their FTMs.
F Swap
F Swap allows users to either buy or sell their synthetic assets directly from their Fantom wallet.
They can use their FTM tokens or fUSDs to trade 176 assets that represent tokens outside the Fantom platform.
This feature is a fully decentralized trading, with no slippage, and allows users to conduct trading transactions without requiring them to leave their wallets.
F Lend
F Lend allows users to lend their FTM and fUSD to the liquidity pool to gain extra income through interests.
They can also use their fUSD as collateral to borrow synthetic assets and trade them on fSwap, again, without exiting from their wallet.
Multichain
Multichain is a platform that provides a Cross-Chain Router Protocol (CRP) system that powers the cross-chain interoperability of NFTs, tokens, and other forms of data on various chains.
It allows users to conveniently transfer between any two chains at a reduced cost, allowing them to execute their tasks easily.
The platform has a cross-chain transaction speed of 100 seconds and delivers 0 slippage transfers.
Spooky Swap
Spooky Swap is a decentralized exchange for tapping the benefits of diversified funds on various ecosystems.
Users can choose from one of its 18+ farm lists, swap tokens on the Fantom network at the lowest possible fees, and collect swap fees by contributing to the pools.
And since it runs on the Fantom platform, Spooky Swap can easily deliver top-grade speed, security, and scalability.
Fantom Opera
Fantom Opera is a permissionless and open-source virtual environment dedicated to the creation of decentralized applications.
Opera uses the aBFT consensus algorithm, which means that even at peak performance, it can still deliver speed and fast finality and prevent risks such as congestion and long confirmation times.
It runs on a Proof-of-Stake system, but its main difference from other PoS-powered platforms is that it is entirely leaderless, meaning it doesn’t rely on validators in determining the validity of blocks.
When it comes to staking, anyone can stake on Opera starting at 1 FTM, and as a validator, a person is required to have at least 1,000,000 FTM tokens.
Fantom: Enterprise Use Cases
Helps Combat Fake Medicines
Fantom can provide “Quick Response-Decentralized Ledger Technology” or “QR-DLT” codes for medicines.
These codes would inform consumers about the complete information of a particular medicine, and all consumers have to do is scan them with their smartphones.
The scanned code will provide instructional videos, current research about a health condition, health warnings, and other relevant information.
QR-DLT eliminates the need for pamphlet printouts and cramming of too much information in such a limited space.
When pharmaceuticals connect with Fantom’s blockchain, their consumers can independently verify if a medicine is fake or not just by scanning its QR-DLT.
This new method would significantly reduce the circulation of authentic-looking yet fake medicines that can potentially harm consumers’ health.
And since it’s all powered by Fantom, all information collected by QR-DLT through consumer scannings will be stored in a blockchain.
Every data will be hashed into the blockchain, integrated with timestamps, and secured by computers all over the world, making crucial information accurate, readily available, yet highly secured.
Helps Improve the Education System
Today, even with advancements in technology, data sharing between schools, universities, and employers remains tedious and costs a lot of time and money.
To finally eliminate this problem, Fantom built a “Central Educational Network” to create an efficient pipeline of information between the said entities to make data authentication more convenient.
Just like how Fantom handles pharmaceutical-based data, it also hashes education-related data into the blockchain and ‘stamps’ them with timestamps.
Fantom also links physical documents to the network in real-time, which finally eliminates the long process of attestations and additional paperwork.
Whether the documents are certificates, degrees, student history, identification, and other confidential data, Fantom’s advanced blockchain network can protect them from tampering and make them accessible at the same time.
Conclusion
Fantom has been clear not only on what solutions it can provide but on how exactly it can deliver these things to blockchain natives. This clarity has helped entice tons of developers and dApp users across the space who are looking for sustainable and working solutions for the blockchain problems they’re facing, especially with Ethereum being too slow and expensive and Solana facing several downtime issues.
