Hey guys :) I’m back with another comprehensive Q&A piece, this time for the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) based Smart Contract platform – Fantom (FTM).
Fantom is a next-generation smart contract platform built on DAG-based distributed ledger technology. The project aims to solve many of the limitations associated with existing smart contract platforms, specifically scalability.
Now, before we dive in, the following piece is similar to my latest articles on Orchid (OXT), Polkadot (DOT), and Kusama (KSM), so if you haven’t already seen those, be sure to check them out as well.
Hope you enjoy!
The list of Q&A is kind of long so first comes the list of questions that I have prepared the answers to:
What is Fantom?
Who and When Created Fantom?
What is the Purpose of the $FTM Token?
How is Fantom Different From Ethereum?
What are Fantom's fTokens?
What is Fantom Opera?
Do you mine or stake $FTM Tokens?
Where to Store $FTM Tokens?
Where to Buy & Sell $FTM Tokens?
1. What is Fantom?
Fantom is a high-performance, scalable, customizable, and secure smart-contract platform built on a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) based distributed ledger technology stack.
Fantom is designed to overcome the limitations of previous generation blockchain platforms (ie. Ethereum, Tezos, Bitcoin, etc.). In fact, Fantom’s DAG-based technology stack is not even considered to be blockchain but is still considered to be distributed ledger technology.
With this newer technology, Fantom aims to solve the scalability issues faced by today’s distributed ledgers. It’s incorporating new methods of scalability combined with a high-performance virtual machine to safely and securely execute smart contracts.
It employs a “revolutionary” aBFT consensus mechanism called "Lachesis" that allows it to be much faster and cheaper than existing blockchain technologies and claims to be extremely secure, (though not tried and tested to the extent of today’s blockchain technologies).
However, just like most reputable blockchains, Fantom is permissionless, decentralized, and open-source. And the Fantom ecosystem enables users to deploy their own independent networks rather than centralizing all computing power and usage on a single decentralized ledger.
Standout Fantom Features
Made for DeFi
Fantom is ideal for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications because it can facilitate near-instant transactions and extremely low fees. Fantom’s first DeFi application is Fantom Finance which enables you to trade, borrow, lend, and earn synthetic assets on Fantom.
Fast Transfers & Low Fees
Fantom’s aBFT consensus protocol facilitates near-instant, secure, and cheap transactions. You don’t have to wait for long confirmation times or pay exorbitant fees to get your transaction confirmed.
Secure
Fantom’s "Lachesis" consensus mechanism secures the network through validators located around the world.
Modular & Connected
Anyone can create and deploy their own customized blockchain on Fantom that is interconnected in one ecosystem.
Developer Friendly
Fantom has a friendly developer community complete with development tools; robust GraphQL, Web3JS APIs, and extensive documentation.
2. Who and When Created Fantom?
Fantom was founded by Dr. Ahn Byung Ik in 2018 who also served as the project CEO before leaving Fantom entirely in 2019. The Fantom project is now led by the Fantom Foundation, which was established in February 2019.
Prior to founding Fantom, Dr. Ahn founded a successful food-tech platform called SikSin, which is similar to Yelp. SikSin has since acquired over 3.5 million downloads and 22 million monthly page views. Moreover, Dr. Ahn is also the president of the Korea Foodtech Association, a contributing writer at Fortune Magazine, and holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Yonsei University.
All in all, Dr.Ahn is a talented individual but he has since left the Fantom project and left it to the Fantom Foundation, which is a registered corporation in the Caymen Islands.
The Fantom Foundation is a team made up of 28 engineers, scientists, researchers, designers, and entrepreneurs who share the same vision of “building the infrastructure for a more democratic and efficient future.”
Key members of the foundation include its CEO Michael Kong, CTO Quan Nguyen, and CMO Michael Chen. Additionally, it should be mentioned that Yearn.Finance’s Andre Cronje serves as a Technical Advisor to Fantom.
As for the creation of the Fantom (FTM) token, Fantom held an ICO in June 2018, selling 40% of the total supply of 3,175,000,000 FTM tokens. The ICO price was roughly ~$0.04 and the team raised $39,650,000 in the ICO.
3. What is the Purpose of the $FTM Token?
The native cryptocurrency on the Fantom network is $FTM and its used for governance, payments, fees, and for securing the network through staking.
$FTM Token Use Cases
Securing the Network
Payments
On-Chain Governance
Network Fees
Securing the Network
The main utility of the FTM token on Fantom is to secure the network via Proof-of-Stake (PoS). Fantom’s PoS system not only secures the network and prevents centralization, but it’s also environmentally friendly.
To participate, you must stake (lock-up) your FTM tokens by choosing a reputable validator to stake to. Fantom network validators are required to hold a minimum of 3,125,000 FTM tokens before users can delegate their stake to them.
Network participants (validators and stakers) in the PoS system are rewarded with epoch rewards and fees.
Payments
The FTM token can be used to send or receive payments with fast finality and low fees thanks to the Fantom network’s high-throughput. On Fantom, FTM token transfers take around 1 second and cost just $0.0000001.
On-Chain Governance
Fantom is a completely permissionless and decentralized smart contract platform and therefore requires on-chain governance to make and carry out decisions regarding the network.
That said, FTM acts as the governance token of Fantom as it’s required to participate in the governance voting process. FTM stakers can propose and vote for changes and improvements to the protocol.
Network Fees
FTM is used to pay for network fees such as transaction fees, fees to deploy smart contracts, or fees to create new networks. Fees for these things are required to prevent network spam and to make it expensive for a malicious actor to carry out an attack.
4. How is Fantom Different From Ethereum?
Fantom is different from Ethereum in a variety of ways:
First of all, the primary difference between the two is that Fantom is based on a Directed Ascilic Graph (DAG) technology stack while Ethereum is based on a blockchain technology stack.
This is the most fundamental difference because they are two completely different architectures with different scalability and security tradeoffs. For example, it can be argued that Ethereum is far more secure and decentralized than Fantom due to the tradeoffs for scalability using DAG-based technology.
Another major difference is that Fantom is modular and connected with the ability to create your own custom blockchains while on Ethereum, everyone has to build atop the Ethereum blockchain.
More differences include:
Fantom employs the aBFT consensus protocol with a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) system while Ethereum employs a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus model.
Fantom’s $FTM token currently resides on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC-20 token, on Binance Chain as a BEP-2 token, and also on Opera Chain as the official FTM token. Ethereum’s $ETH token resides solely on the Ethereum blockchain.
5. What are Fantom's fTokens?
Fantom’s fTokens are synthetic tokens on Fantom’s first DeFi stack built on aBFT consensus. fTokens can be minted, traded, lent, or borrowed on Fantom’s first Defi platform, Fantom.Finance.
Mint fUSD with fMint
fMint is the gateway to fantom DeFi as it lets you mint Fantom’s fUSD stablecoin that’s pegged 1:1 to the USD price. Using your FTM at a 500% over-collateralization ratio, you can mint and rebalance fUSD at any time by adding or removing FTM. You can also unlock your FTM by repaying the fUSD you minted at any time.
Trade synths on fSwap
fSwap is a fully decentralized fToken swap platform that allows you to buy and sell fTokens directly from you Fantom Wallet. FTM or fUSD can be used to trade over 176 synthetic tokens, including fBTC and fETH.
Lend and borrow on fLend
Put your FTM and fUSD to work by lending them out to the liquidity pool and earn interest on your capital. Alternatively, use fUSD as collateral to borrow synthetic assets and trade them on fSwap, without ever leaving your wallet.
6. What is Fantom Opera?
Fantom Opera is a secure and fast development environment for building decentralized applications. It is fully permissionless, open-source, and powered by Fantom’s aBFT consensus algorithm to provide fast finality transactions, making it ready for real-world applications.
Also, the Fantom Opera mainnet is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and provides full smart contract support through Solidity. It’s designed to keep compatibility with Ethereum for seamless dapp porting to Fantom Opera’s more scalable platform.
Fantom Opera Features
Leaderless Proof-of-Stake
Opera validators do not determine which blocks are valid, which increases network security substantially.
Fast Finality
Transactions on Opera are considered finalized and settled in less than 2 seconds, thanks to the underlying Lachesis aBFT consensus mechanism.
EVM compatibility and Solidity compiler support
Developers can write, deploy, and run smart contracts as they would on Ethereum, but on top of Opera’s faster consensus mechanism.
Open Source
Opera is easy for developers to build on because all of the code is open-source and available on Github.
Easy Onboarding
Fantom’s native PWA wallet cryptocurrency wallet will automatically swap ERC-20 and BEP-2 to Opera FTM. Simply select the network you are sending tokens from and send your FTM to the displayed address.
7. Do you mine or stake $FTM Tokens?
You can stake FTM tokens, you cannot mine them.
Fantom uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism to validate transactions and secure the network. FTM token holders can participate in the network and earn rewards through staking (locking-up) as little as 1 FTM token.
Staking on Fantom is easy. You don’t need any specialized hardware or device, you can stake directly from your laptop or phone.
It’s as easy as 1,2,3:
Install the PWA wallet (desktop/mobile)
Transfer your FTM from an exchange or an ERC-20 wallet to your Opera address
Choose a reputable validator and click on stake. That’s it!
More detailed steps on how to stake FTM can be found in this step-by-step guide.
FTM Staking Rewards
As seen in the image above, the FTM staking rewards are very high to reward early adopters of the network and dilute as participation increases.
Network Rewards will be as follows:
16.48 FTM per second ($0.165 / second)
1,423,872 FTM per day ($14,238.72 / day)
42,716,160 FTM per month ($427,161.60 / month)
As for validator rewards, validators receive a fixed commission rate of 15% of the rewards that they earn for its stakers. To run a validator node, you need at least 3,175,000 FTM, specialized hardware and software, and you must be technically savvy.
8. Where to Store $FTM Tokens?
Fantom (FTM) tokens can reside on the Ethereum blockchain as ERC-20 tokens, on Binance Chain as BEP-2 tokens, and on the Fantom Opera Chain as native FTM tokens.
That said, depending on the type of FTM token you have, you can store it in any of the corresponding blockchain network’s most trusted and reputable wallets.
However, the best wallet for storing any kind of FTM token is the official PWA Fantom Wallet. This wallet only supports Fantom Opera FTM tokens but automatically converts ERC-20 and BEP-2 based FTM tokens to Opera-based tokens upon deposit. The PWA Fantom Wallet enables you to send, store, and stake your FTM all from within the wallet.
Other FTM token wallets include:
Popular Ethereum-based Fantom (FTM) Wallets:
Trust Wallet (mobile, desktop)
Argent (mobile)
Coinbase Wallet (mobile)
Metamask (web)
Popular Binance Chain Fantom (FTM) Wallets:
Guarda Wallet (mobile, desktop)
Atomic Wallet (mobile, desktop)
Binance Chain Web Wallet (web)
Trust Wallet (mobile)
In addition to the above-listed wallets, Fantom (FTM) can be stored on a wide variety of other reputable ERC-20 and BEP-2 token supported wallets.
9. Where to Buy & Sell $FTM Tokens?
Fantom (FTM) can be bought and sold on a peer-to-peer (P2P) basis but the most popular way to buy, sell, or trade FTM is through centralized or decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges.
You can buy FTM with cryptocurrency or fiat currency at the following top exchanges. In most cases, you will be able to buy FTM with BTC, ETH, or stablecoins.
Binance - BTC, USDT, BNB
OKEx - USDT, USDK
Kucoin - BTC, ETH
Gate.io - BTC, ETH
ProBit Exchange - USDT, KRW
In addition to the exchanges listed above, Fantom (FTM) is also traded on a wide variety of other exchanges and platforms that enable people to buy, sell, or trade cryptocurrencies.
Hope you enjoyed that read :) Let me know if I have missed something in the comments.