What is so unique about Fantom?
Traditional blockchain systems, such as the Bitcoin blockchain, aren’t designed for scalability; rather, they prioritize security and decentralization. A transaction on the Bitcoin network, for example, can take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes. This makes scaling the network in terms of transactions difficult.
The Fantom team aims to fill this gap by utilizing a leaderless proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol that is used to protect the network (i.e., the blockchain does not compromise security or decentralization). Moreover, a transaction on the FTM network takes 1–2 seconds to complete. Also, the transaction costs are far lower than those of Bitcoin.
The Fantom Opera mainnet is Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible and supports full smart contract functionality via Solidity. Fantom’s network is unique in that it is self-contained, meaning that the performance of one area’s traffic congestion has no bearing on other areas of the network. So, is Fantom its own blockchain?
Every application gets its own personalized (independent) blockchain with specific tokens, governance rules and tokenomics, thanks to Fantom’s high level of scalability. The infinite number of decentralized systems that make up Fantom interact with one another while working independently in their own zones.
What is FTM used for?
The Fantom network’s primary token is FTM, which is utilized for payments, governance, staking and fees and for safeguarding the network.
The Fantom network’s speedy finality makes the payments faster (take around a second). Moreover, high throughput and low costs (roughly $0.0000001) make the FTM token perfect for exchanging money.
Network fees
FTM is used to pay for network fees such as fees for deploying Fantom smart contracts or creating new networks or even transaction fees.
The fee ensures that the network is not an easy target for spam, and a malicious user cannot cause speed issues or clog the ledger with meaningless data.
Although the fees on Fantom are pretty low, they are sufficient to keep the attackers away by making entry into the system exceedingly costly for a malevolent actor.
Network security
With the use of a proof-of-stake system, the FTM token aims to secure the network where stakers need to lock their tokens, and validators need to hold a minimum of 3,175,000 FTM to participate. Fees and epoch rewards are given to stakers and validators for their services.
The future of the Fantom crypto
Being more secure and environmentally friendly than traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, Fantom uses the PoS consensus method and Lachesis (Fantom’s aBFT consensus algorithm) to set the nodes’ communication rules.
