Fantom back from the dead?

FTM Deep Dive

Fantom's Sonic upgrade: 2,000 transactions/second and sub-1 second finality.

This could be the catalyst for a glorious FTM resurgence.

Here's everything you need to know + my overall project scorecard.🧵

Here's what we'll cover:

1. Overview

2. Use Case

3. Adoption

4. Revenue

5. Tokenomics

6. Treasury

7. Governance

8. Team & Investors

9. Competitors

10. Risks & Audits

11. Summary

Note: I am NOT an ambassador or advisor of Fantom.

Fantom is a Layer 1 blockchain that boasts the following characteristics:

• Permissionless

• Decentralized

• Open source

Lachesis, a revolutionary aBFT consensus protocol has made Fantom faster and cheaper than previous technologies while retaining robust security.

Fantom is one of the OG DeFi chains from the previous bull run (2021) and holds a special place in many degens hearts (mine included). It is home to hundreds of popular dApps such as:

• SpookySwap

• Beethoven X

• CREAM

• SpiritSwap

Recently, the team announced the launch of Sonic, the next iteration of the Fantom technology stack.

It is set to launch in Q2 2024 and will consist of three primary components:

1. Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM)

2. Carmen Database Storage

3. Optimized Lachesis Consensus Mechanism

Fantom TVL is currently at $200 million, a steep 98% drop from its peak of $8.7 billion in 2022. It was one of the projects hit hardest during the bear market.

Despite this, there are signs of recovery as volume and TVL have both increased by over 100% in the last month.

In the last 30 days, @FantomFDN made $280k in fees and $80k in revenue.

Fantom's Gas Monetization program shares 15% of gas fees with dApps to ensure sustainable income and support projects building on their chain.

The native token $FTM is used to:

• Pay for transactions

• Execute smart contracts

• Secure network through PoS

• Vote in governance

The reason for the circulating supply being less than the total supply is attributed to the burning mechanism.

Here's how the gas fees are divided per transaction:

• 70% → validators

• 15% → GasM program

• 10% → Ecosystem Vault

• 5% → permanently burnt

In total, more than 11.2m $FTM have been burned to date.

100% of the FTM tokens have been unlocked and there are no further vesting cliffs.

Current supply stats:

• Circulating supply: 2.8b

• Max supply: 3.175b

• Market cap: $2.82b

• FDV: $3.2b

• Market cap/FDV: 88%

According to Arkham, the @FantomFDN multisig currently holds 270m $FTM = $271m USD at current prices.

As per a blog post in Nov '22, Andre also notes that the treasury held:

• > $100m in stables

• > $100m in crypto assets

• $50m in non-crypto assets

Total estimate = $521m

On Fantom, governance functions through an on-chain process where FTM stakers can submit and vote on proposals that influence the platform's mechanics and tokenomics.

Over the past 3 years, 40 proposals have been submitted and voted on by FTM stakers.

Fantom was founded in 2018 and current key contributers include @AndreCronjeTech & @michaelfkong .

@FantomFDN has raised $81.60m over the years ($40m funding rounds & $41.6m public sale).

Prominent Investors include: Arrington XRP Capital, Bitscale Capital & DHVC.

Fantom faces fierce competition from numerous blockchains, including Layer 1s like Solana, Avalanche & Sui, as well as Layer 2s such as Arbitrum, Polygon & Base.

Competition is intense as projects strive to innovate and attract TVL. Fantom's path to success won't be an easy one.

With a CertiK score of 89.67, it ranks 20th among other L1s.

Although the 2023 Multichain incident was not caused by any vulnerabilities in Fantom, it has left many lasting scars. In positive news, a Singapore judge has recently ruled in favor of Fantom in their lawsuit.

Overall, I am becoming more bullish on Fantom by the day. It was one of my favorite chains in the last bull market and the tech is even better now.

Upcoming catalysts:

• Sonic upgrade

• Ecosystem airdrops

• Andre Cronje factor

Overall weighted score = 8.35