Fantom

Fantom is a directed acyclic graph (DAG) smart contract platform providing decentralized finance (DeFi) services to developers using its own bespoke consensus algorithm.

Together with its in-house token FTM, Fantom aims to solve problems associated with smart-contract platforms, specifically transaction speed, which developers say they have reduced to under two seconds.

The Fantom Foundation, which oversees the Fantom product offering, was originally created in 2018, with the launch of OPERA, Fantom’s mainnet, coming in December 2019.

The Fantom Foundation was founded by South Korean computer scientist Dr. Ahn Byung Ik. Currently, the platform’s CEO is Michael Kong.

The team behind Fantom has extensive experience primarily in the field of full-stack blockchain development, and aimed to create a smart contract platform which privileges scalability, decentralization and security.

According to its official website, Fantom’s team also consists of specialist engineers, scientists, researchers, designers and entrepreneurs. Employees are located throughout the world, matching the ethos of a distributed platform.

Fantom attempts to use a new scratch-built consensus mechanism to facilitate DeFi and related services on the basis of smart contracts.

The mechanism, Lachesis, promises much higher capacity and two-second transaction finalization, along with improvements to security over traditional proof-of-stake (PoS) algorithm-based platforms.

Matching Ethereum, the project appeals to developers looking to deploy decentralized solutions. According to its official literature, its mission is to “grant compatibility between all transaction bodies around the world.”

Its in-house PoS token, FTM, forms the backbone of transactions, and allows fee collection and staking activities, along with the user rewards the latter represents.

Through token sales in 2018, Fantom raised almost $40 million to fund development.

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.

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.