What is Fantom?
TL;DR
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In this week’s Wealth Mastery Altcoin Review, we will discuss a project that’s been around a while and learn everything necessary in “What is Fantom.”
- What is Fantom?
- What is the Future of Fantom?
- What is FTM Altcoin?
- How do you Buy Fantom?
- Is Fantom a Good Investment?
What is Fantom?
Fantom will be celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, so it’s time to look closer at where the project began and where it’s headed.
Fantom started its journey wanting to become the cheapest, fastest, and easiest network available to Governments and private institutions to build on. In fact, one of Fantom’s biggest goals is to become the network banks rely on to transfer and issue Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC.)
Fantom is a network built using Directed Acyclic Graph technology similar to how IOTA operates its Tangle network. Fantom calls their consensus mechanism Lachesis (LCA), designed to be a more efficient consensus method. Fantom settles transactions in seconds using the Lachesis Leaderless Proof of Stake system. Designed to remove validators from determining which blocks are valid. Lachesis uses asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerance (aBFT) in combination with Directed Acyclic Graphs to update the network. With almost half a billion dollars in Total Value Locked (TVL) between the Ethereum Network and Fantom, Fantom boasts an ecosystem of over 250 DeFi applications.
Fantom has partnered with some of the biggest protocols operating in the blockchain sector, including Chainlink, Band Protocol, Ren, Covalent, Ankr, Waves, Injective Protocol, The Graph, and Cronos.
There’s not much missing from the Fantom ecosystem, with dApps built to provide NFT, Gaming, Exchange, Governance, Data Aggregation, DID, Wallet, and Oracle services. Fantom has designed an entire network around its blockchain technology. However, one of the things Fantom has not been able to accomplish is a relationship with any major banking organization. But it has been able to secure several government and corporate partnerships. Pakistan has been the biggest beneficiary of Fantoms network, Building alliances with the Pakistan Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority and Pakistan Punjab Prisons Department. Fantom has also partnered with the Ministry of Industry of Technologies of Tajikistan and pharmaceutical companies Royal Star, Nabros, and Bliss GVS.
From this information, anyone should know that Fantom is a corporate-driven blockchain. As such, it relies on the ability to control network activity through a majority share in Fantom’s Governance staking mechanism. This is due to Fantom’s 1 Million FTM Validator Node requirement. Once referred to as an “Ethereum Killer,” Fantom still holds over 75% of the available token supply on Ethereum. Remaining an EVM-compatible network has made integrating existing dApps on Ethereum a breeze for Fantom developers.
What is the Future of Fantom?
What is the Future of Fantom? etsts
Fantom has remained consistent with updating the community through its blog. But the underlying Lachesis technology hasn’t changed much in recent years. The same goes for FMint, Fantom’s Smart Contract module, and Fantom Opera, Fantom’s Official dApp & Development API. While Ethereum has undergone major changes over the past few years, Fantom has provided no further innovations. Making it feel like Fantom has been coasting for a while now.
Last year, Fantom Foundation and DeFi messiah Andre Cronjie terminated his involvement with Fantom and 23 other projects, handing over what was left to their existing teams. MultiChain (formerly known as AnySwap) and Solidex were two of the biggest projects on Fantom, according to TVL, that Cronjie left. Andre eventually returned, but the project hasn’t been the same since.
SpookySwap, Beethoven X, and Geist Finance comprise the largest portion of value currently on Fantom, with these three protocols accounting for almost half of Fantom’s Total Value Locked on Ethereum. Considering that Fantom had $8 Billion locked this time last year. It’s easy to see that Fantom is having difficulty gaining new projects to create value. This puts the future of Fantom in a rather rocky position.
One thing Fantom has done this year is update their fWallet software. Intending to offer users a better experience. The Fantom Wallet has made significant changes to its design. Changes made based on feedback from the Fantom community. Validators can now increase their stake instead of creating an entirely new delegation. The staking system has been refreshed to offer time locks and the ability to withdraw portions of the staking contract. Fantom Wallet users can now create and manage Governance proposals directly from the fWallet.
Fantom’s integrated Bridge and a new Swap feature have also been added. Fantom integrated domain names for the first time and now allows users to change accounts without deleting their existing one. Before this update, fees weren’t visible to the user before sending a transaction. Needless to say, it’s been a much-needed update to an otherwise stale wallet experience. Aside from slight differences, the fWallet feels like a copy/paste version of the Exodus Wallets’ user interface.
Fantom announced an upgraded version of its Go Opera software this year. Improvements and optimizations were said to been made to Fantom’s block processing time by tweaking the database layer. But, referring back to Fantom’s codebase, it doesn’t look like much has changed this year. Leaving me to believe this recent update was more for show than anything else. The Fantom Foundation did conduct its first round of Grants last year. Giving away just over $60,000 in FTM tokens, Fantom matched half the community donations for the 88 projects that entered the first round, with funds finally distributed earlier this month.
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What is FTM Altcoin?
Fantom released its FTM token on Ethereum back in 2018. Issuing a total of 3.1 Billion tokens to represent the Fantom network. The Fantom Foundation allocated 7.5% to the team, 40.3% to Early Funding, 12% to Advisors, 6% to Reserves, and 32.8% to Block Rewards.
Due to the project’s centralization of Validators, Fantom’s network was halted in 2021 when issues arose surrounding two Validators who owned one-third of all staked FTM. So you can probably guess where most of Fantom’s Block Rewards have been going since then. For the first two years after the FTM token was released, there was little fanfare for the project. But that changed in 2021 when Fantom jumped from two cents at the beginning of the year to over $2 by the end of it. The FTM token began recovering in late 2022 after falling below $0.20 and now sits in the $0.50 range. An estimated 87% of all FTM tokens have been distributed to network participants. With only 13% left of the Total Supply, I expect Fantom will pivot once all block rewards have been claimed and the token supply is saturated by the end of 2025.
How do you Buy Fantom?
Binance is by far the largest trader of FTM tokens. Of the $350 Million in daily trading activity, Binance is responsible for $150 Million of that volume between the FTM/USDT and FTM/BUSD trading pairs. FTM tokens are also available on Phemex, Binance US, Kucoin, and OKX.
Is Fantom a Good Investment?
I’m not convinced that Fantom is a good investment at this time. Fantom seems technically sound but is lacking in the wow department. There’s nothing inherently special or different about Fantom that entices new investors to participate. Aside from purchasing FTM tokens for staking purposes, there’s not a lot of utility provided to holders. Sure, Fantom is fast and cheap. But it comes at the expense of being a highly centralized network. Something that is by design based on FTM’s initial distribution.
With so much of the project value still living on Ethereum, it becomes obvious that participants are reluctant to lock themselves into using the Fantom network exclusively. Since Fantom hasn’t been moving the bar forward much, it’s easy to see where that reluctance comes from. There’s a lot of tech talk from smart people about innovation coming from Fantom. But not enough follow-through to make Fantom stand out against other EVM-compatible networks. Fantom’s focus on providing the rails for central banking institutions to manipulate us with CBDCs is not something I personally want anything to do with. Depending on what side of that argument you stand on has a big factor in how you view the protocol.
Until next time, remember that the only guarantee is BTC. So keep stacking that Satoshi. -Jesse Koz