Fantom ($FTM)

Fantom is a high-performance, scalable, and secure layer-1 platform built on an aBFT consensus protocol. It is designed to overcome the limitations of previous-generation blockchain platforms. Fantom is permissionless, decentralized, and open-source.

Fantom is an innovative PoS chain with a unique consensus mechanism called Lachesis enabling it to be much faster and cheaper than previous blockchain technology. Some of the key features of the Fantom Blockchain are:

Speed

Fantom achieves transactions finality in 1 second on average.

Scalability

Fantom can process thousands of transactions per second and can scale to hundreds of nodes.

Security

Lachesis provides institutional-grade security to distributed networks. Fantom offers absolute finality, which means that transactions can never be reverted like in networks with probabilistic finality. Fantom is also leaderless. By removing leaders, security doesn’t rely on a small set of actors.

Smart contract support

Fantom is fully compatible with Ethereum. Developers can create and deploy smart contracts as they would on Ethereum.

Consensus-as-a-service

Lachesis can be used to create any kind of private and public distributed ledger, using EVM or Cosmos SDK.

Customizable

Multiple blockchains can all be plugged into Lachesis and they can easily communicate. Each blockchain works independently from one another, and each of them can have its own custom tokens, tokenomics, and governance rules.

Modular

Lachesis is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and it can be integrated with the Cosmos SDK.

HOW DOES FANTOM WORK

Fantom is modular

Lachesis represents one layer, the consensus, of the blockchain technology stack and can be plugged into any distributed ledger. Lachesis powers Fantom’s Opera mainnet deployment, which uses the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and it’s compatible with Ethereum.

The modularity makes Fantom exceptionally flexible. Developers can port their existing Ethereum-based dApps on Fantom Opera mainnet in a matter of minutes, substantially upgrading the performance and lowering the costs.

Fantom is secure and environmentally friendly

Fantom is secured by Proof-of-Stake. Unlike Proof-of-Work, used by Bitcoin and Ethereum, Proof-of-Stake prevents centralization and saves electricity.

Lachesis can provide institutional-grade security to distributed networks. Fantom offers absolute finality, which means that transactions can never be reverted like in networks with probabilistic finality.

The consensus mechanism can also scale to hundreds of nodes, increasing decentralization and therefore security.

Lastly, Lachesis is leaderless. By removing leaders, security doesn’t rely on a small set of actors.

Fantom is open

Fantom is open-source. The team is committed to creating building blocks for anyone to use and customize to their needs. We relentlessly aim for high transparency regarding our work. Based on these principles, our code is open-source and available on Github.

Fantom is open-participation meaning Fantom is permissionless. Anyone can run a node. On Fantom’s Opera Chain, a virtually unlimited number of validator nodes can participate in securing the network, as long as they keep a minimum of 1,000,000 FTM at stake.

If you own lower amounts of the token or you’re not an expert in running distributed systems, you can still participate in securing the network. You can delegate a minimum of 1 FTM to a validator node, and get rewarded.

WHAT IS LACHESIS?

Lachesis is a breakthrough aBFT (Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance) consensus algorithm developed by Fantom. A consensus mechanism is an engine that powers a blockchain. Lachesis when compared to other traditional infrastructures such as Classical and Nakamoto consensus is faster, more scalable, and a more secure choice.

Lachesis allows developers to build peer-to-peer applications on the network without having to create their own networking layer. Some benefits of Lachesis are:

Asynchronous: Participants have the freedom to process commands at different times.

Leaderless: No participant plays a “special” role.

Byzantine Fault-Tolerant: Supports one-third of faulty nodes, including malicious behavior.

Final: Lachesis’s output can be used immediately. There is no need to wait for block confirmations; transactions are confirmed in 1-2 seconds.

Lachesis is designed to plug into applications written in any programming language easily. Developers can focus on building the application logic and integrate Lachesis to handle the state machine replication aspect.

Lachesis connects to other Lachesis nodes and guarantees that everyone processes the same commands in the same order. To do this, it uses peer-to-peer networking and a DAG aBFT consensus algorithm. Great video that is visual for better understanding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRoS7VVwe7w

HOW DOES LACHESIS WORK?

Each Lachesis node stores a local acyclic directed graph (DAG) composed of event blocks, each of which contains transactions. The DAG, capturing the happens-before relationship between the events, is used to calculate an exact final order of events—and hence transactions—independently on each node.

Event blocks are divided into confirmed and unconfirmed event blocks. New event blocks are unconfirmed, while event blocks from the past 2-3+ frames are all confirmed, and subsequently ordered by honest nodes.

Consensus results in batches of confirmed event blocks, where each batch of events is called a block. Finalized blocks forming the final chain are calculated from event blocks independently on each node.

Unlike Proof-of-Work, round-robin Proof-of-Stake, coinage Proof-of-Stake, and sync BFT, Lachesis nodes don’t; send blocks to each other. Only the events are synced between nodes. Validators don’t vote on a concrete state of the network; instead, they periodically exchange observed transactions and events with peers.

Unlike Classical consensus, such as pBFT, Lachesis doesn’t use new events in the current election; instead, new events are used to vote for the events in 2-3+ previous virtual elections simultaneously. This leads to a smaller number of created consensus messages, as the same event is reused in different elections.Hence, Lachesis achieves a lower time to finality and smaller communication overhead compared to synchronous BFT.

FANTOM ECOSYSTEM

There are already 80+ dApps (decentralized applications) build and deployed on the Fantom network. These range from DEXs, Cross-chain Bridges, Lending and Borrowing, Yield Optimizers, NFT platforms, Play-To-Earn games, and more.

Click the link and scroll down to view the projects - https://fantom.foundation/

TOKENOMICS

$FTM is the native token of the ecosystem and the network. The $FTM is used for the following:

Securing the network

The main utility of the FTM token on Fantom is to secure the network via a Proof-of-Stake system. To participate, validator nodes need to hold a minimum of 3,175,000 FTM, and stakers need to lock up their FTM. In return for the service, both the nodes and the stakers are rewarded with epoch rewards and fees.

Payments

The FTM token is ideal for sending and receiving payments thanks to the Fantom network’s high throughput, fast finality, and low fees.

On-chain governance

FTM is needed for on-chain governance. Because Fantom is a fully permissionless and leaderless decentralized ecosystem, any decision regarding the network is carried out by on-chain governance.

Network fees

FTM is used for network fees, such as transaction fees and fees to deploy smart contracts or to create new networks.

A total of 3.175 billion $FTM was initially issued. The entirety of the supply, including staking rewards, was minted at launch.

40% was allocated to Public and Private Sale investors, including private sale bonuses. Those FTM have no vesting schedule.

15% was allocated to advisors, with a 3-months lockup

10% was allocated to the founding team. This allocation features a 24-months vesting period with monthly-cliffs

3.6% was allocated to a strategic reserve. Those FTM have no vesting schedule.

31.4% was reserved for staking rewards, to be distributed daily until 2024

INVESTORS

Follow this link here to see partners, integrations, and more - https://admin.fantom.foundation/partners/

TEAM

Below are the core Fantom Foundation team.

Follow this link for more information - https://fantom.foundation/about/