Fantom Foundation offers an all-in-one decentralized finance (DeFi) suite of applications, alongside enterprise-grade development tools for building individual blockchain networks. The Fantom token (FTM) has seen a substantial price rally during the past three months, as the Fantom network and its mainnet Opera Chain begin to gain adoption. This is achieved with the use of the multi-functional Fantom Wallet and the FTM token, offering users a convenient one-stop solution for different DeFi protocols.
Moreover, the Fantom Foundation has had a long string of partnerships and integrations with the platform including The Afghanistan Ministry of Public Health, Royal Star Pharma, Chainlink, Ontology, and many other big-name projects.
In this article, we’re going to dive deep into the Fantom Foundation ecosystem and explore the various decentralized applications (dApps) and protocols it offers. Moreover, we’ll discover how Opera Chain was created as a next-generation blockchain using a novel consensus mechanism. Also, we will take a look at why Fantom’s FTM token is so crucial to the security of the network.
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What is Fantom?
Fantom is a one-stop-shop solution for blockchain developers wanting to build secure decentralized applications, with customizable and modular features. The Fantom Opera Chain mainnet uses a unique innovative consensus mechanism to offer incredibly competitive network fees and throughput.
Fantom is an open-source smart contract-enabled blockchain. Also, Fantom offers a landscape for developers and enterprise services for businesses requiring secure scalable blockchain solutions. All of this is achieved through the FTM token maintaining security and decentralization of the project. Furthermore, Fantom can enable developers to deploy their own networks within the Fantom ecosystem, as opposed to all computing power being navigated on a single distributed ledger.
Fantom Token (FTM)
The FTM token is available as the native Fantom FTM token standard, Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard, or the Binance BEP-2 token standard. The FTM token is the lifeblood of the Fantom ecosystem, facilitating decentralized governance and security through the Proof-of-Stake mechanism. Moreover, the FTM token can be used for seamless payment interactions and to pay for Fantom network fees.
The total supply of FTM tokens is 3.175 billion at the time of writing. According to CoinGecko, there are approximately 2.5 billion tokens in circulation. Fantom Foundation has advised reserving the remaining tokens to be used as staking rewards. With the current rate of reward distribution, it will take approximately another two years before the full max supply of FTM tokens are in circulation. However, this may change with future governance proposals.
Why Use Fantom?
Fantom boasts several advantages over competing blockchains.
Speed - Fantom’s Lachesis consensus mechanism can facilitate thousands of transactions per second whilst maintaining reliability and security. The average transaction time is approximately one second.
Cost - The cost of sending a transaction on Fantom is minuscule (averaging about $0.0000001 per transaction).
Security - The Proof-of-Stake network of Fantom’s validator nodes secure the network in a leaderless, decentralized, and trustless way. Fantom is designed to become more secure as the network grows. Moreover, although fees are incredibly cheap, the consensus mechanism ensures it is extremely expensive and unprofitable for a malicious actor to attack the network.
Scalability - Already, Fantom can facilitate several thousands of transactions per second. However, the Fantom protocol can seamlessly scale to thousands of nodes, without compromising the privacy or security of the network. Also, the immense scalability of Fantom extends to applications created within the network. The scalability of Fantom allows developers to continuously innovate and build on their applications to a global scale.
EVM-Compatible - A key feature to note is that Fantom is EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible. This means developers who have created decentralized applications (dApps) on Ethereum can deploy and run their applications on Fantom with zero friction. To discover more about Ethereum’s EVM, save our ‘eWASM and EVM Explained’ article for later!
Fantom Opera Chain
Fantom Opera Chain is the Fantom mainnet, facilitating staking services and EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) support. Opera was created with some of the short-comings from older blockchains in mind, to ensure sustainable scalability for future growth whilst integrating Ethereum compatibility for effortless decentralized application (dApp) porting.
Opera is fully open-source and permissionless, meaning any developer can build dApps utilizing the Opera environment for its fast transaction finality and flexibility. Moreover, the Fantom Opera mainnet offers full smart contract support through Ethereum’s programming language, Solidity. Powered by the novel Lachesis aBFT consensus mechanism, Opera can host real-world applications with minimal risk of network congestion or high gas fees.
Opera Explorer
The Opera Explorer tool is a block explorer tool, much like Ethereum’s Etherscan website. However, the Opera Explorer is a tool solely dedicated to the Opera Chain. When launching the Opera Explorer, you’ll be welcomed with a homepage featuring network metrics and statistics. This includes the number of blocks, accounts, validators, and confirmed transactions on the network. Moreover, Opera Explorer makes it easy to search for a specific transaction or address using the provided search bar.
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Fantom Consensus: Lachesis
With every blockchain, a consensus mechanism is used for the network to reach a mutual agreement and understanding of each transaction's validity and confirmation. The first consensus mechanism, introduced by Bitcoin creator(s) Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, is referred to as Proof-of-Work. The Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanism requires each miner in the network to use immense computing power to compete to solve mathematical equations to prove a transaction is valid. However, this consensus mechanism requires a lot of energy, and the transaction time is generally quite slow (usually between 10 minutes to one hour). Since then, there have been dramatic developments with blockchain consensus algorithms.
Fantom has introduced a novel consensus algorithm referred to as ‘Lachesis’, or an aBFT (asynchronous Byzantine Fault-Tolerant) consensus mechanism. Compared to the Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanism, aBFT offers substantially quicker transaction times (one to two seconds) and removes the vulnerability of a 51% attack. Additionally, aBFT is scalable and secure, offering developers the chance to build peer-to-peer applications without the need to build a networking layer.
The ‘asynchronous’ part of aBFT means that commands in the network can be processed by different participants at different times. Lachesis is ‘leaderless’, with no participant taking on any ‘special roles’ within the network. Moreover, the finality of Lachesis means that the output can be used immediately. This is how transactions can be confirmed within a second or two, as the need to wait for block confirmations is removed.
Fantom Finance: A New DeFi Experience
Fantom Finance offers a suite of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications as a one-stop-shop for all your DeFi needs. Moreover, Fantom can facilitate these protocols with near-instant transaction finality and almost zero fees. Fantom Finance offers four main products in its DeFi suite:
Liquid Staking
Fantom offers users the chance to lock up their FTM tokens, and mint sFTM tokens (staked FTM) at a 1:1 ratio. These tokens are ‘liquid’ and can be used across different protocols within the Fantom ecosystem. Additionally, there is no fee for minting and repaying sFTM tokens.
fMint
This protocol offers users the ability to mint synthetic assets, including cryptocurrencies and pegged assets such as commodities and national currencies.
fLend
Users can use their liquid sFTM tokens in Fantom’s borrowing and lending protocols. This means users can gain exposure to these products without risking their FTM token stake.
fTrade
Available through the Fantom Wallet (explained further on), fTrade is the automated market maker (AMM) decentralized exchange (DEX) built on Fantom. This allows users to make any Fantom-based token transaction, all provided from one wallet.
Fantom Staking
There are different ways to get involved with staking on Fantom. In turn, there are three roles you can play within the Fantom network, where you can earn a passive income with your FTM tokens.
Validators
There is a minimum requirement of 3,175,000 FTM to become a validator node. Validators are rewarded each epoch with staking rewards and transaction fees from the network.
Delegators
If you would like to participate in validating the network without the responsibility of being a full validator node, you could opt to become a delegator. A delegator can contribute to the network minus the upfront financial cost of being a validator node. The minimum requirement of FTM tokens to be delegated to a validator is one FTM token. Validators will take a commission from delegators in exchange for their services, which is currently set at 15%. However, delegators will receive a percentage of transaction fees from their appointed validator.
Stakers
Alternatively, if you would like to earn a passive income with crypto with minimal effort or requirements, you can earn rewards by staking FTM tokens in the Fantom Wallet. Users are rewarded each epoch with a percentage of staking rewards variable dependent upon the amount one has staked. Also, the Fantom website offers an online calculator to work out how much FTM token interest you could earn.
Fantom Wallet
The Fantom Wallet is the native wallet for the Fantom Opera mainnet and allows users to stake, store, and send their FTM tokens. Moreover, this is achieved with users being in ownership and control of their private keys.
Additionally, the Fantom Wallet features a fully decentralized automated market maker (AMM) exchange. This is where users can exchange Fantom-based digital assets including cryptocurrencies, synthetic assets, and other tokenized commodities.
The Fantom Wallet also allows FTM token holders to vote on update proposals through the app. Users simply head to the ‘Polls’ tab, where they will be presented with any current proposals or parameter updates. Here, they can choose to vote for their desired outcome.
Enterprise
Taking the Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) model one step further, Fantom Foundation offers enterprise blockchain services using their innovative Consensus-as-a-Service (CaaS) protocol. In short, this allows businesses to build secure scalable applications using a public or private distributed ledger settlement system.
Fantom enterprise services offer a customizable and adaptable solution for enterprises, tailored to a business’ needs. Also, Fantom works closely with their partners, offering services at each step of the journey. Furthermore, Fantom is responsible for enterprise-grade security, flexibility, and support from concept, to development, through to maintenance.
Fantom Foundation & FTM Token Summary
In summary, Fantom Foundation has a wide variety of applications on offer. Moreover, these can be used by individuals, developers, and businesses alike. The unique aBFT consensus mechanism used by the Fantom Opera Chain offers near-instant transaction finality and sub-cent fees. Moreover, the Consensus-as-a-Service offered by Fantom creates a novel and exciting consensus development opportunity for enterprise-grade scalability and security. This could make the Opera Chain a main contender when considering implementing or building blockchain-based business solutions.
The native Fantom token (FTM) started 2021 at a price of $0.01 and has since surged to a new all-time high of $0.84. At the time of writing, many agree that the FTM token remains bullish in technical analysis terms, with a price of $0.43. With continuous global partnership announcements, such as The Afghanistan National Standard Authority working with Fantom to record diploma certificates, Fantom Foundation appears strong from a fundamental analysis perspective too.
Fantom offers various enterprise blockchain services that can be seamlessly integrated with current IT infrastructures. If you’d like to learn more about how centralized IT systems can implement blockchain-based solutions, see the Blockchain Business Masterclass at Ivan on Tech Academy. Moreover, to discover how the Baseline Protocol is being incorporated with some of the largest companies in the world, see our Blockchain for Enterprise course.
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