Fantom is an open-source and borderless blockchain that supports smart contracts and decentralized applications (Dapps) development.
Fantom is fully compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing developers to build and develop their applications the same way as Ethereum. Additionally, the Fantom blockchain supports the Solidity compiler which makes the app development in the Solidity programing language possible.
Fantom is governed by its validators, a group of computer systems that are responsible for verifying transactions and securing the network. In the diagram below, you can see how the on-chain governance system of the Fantom blockchain works:
Fantom’s On-chain Governance – Source: Fantom Foundation
It’s worth mentioning that Fantom is a green blockchain and its electricity consumption is less than the yearly consumption of an American household.
Lachesis is Fantom’s innovative consensus mechanism, an Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (aBFT) algorithm that aims to solve the blockchain trilemma.
A concept introduced by Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the Ethereum blockchain, blockchain trilemma refers to the trade-offs developers need to make between decentralization, security, and scalability if trying to improve any two of the three.
According to Fantom’s documentation, “an aBFT consensus protocol allows for maximum decentralization, high scalability, and bank-grade security.”
One of the main features of Lachesis is its finality. Unlike conventional consensus algorithms, like Proof-of-work (PoW), transactions are final almost instantly and users don’t need to wait for confirmations to know their transactions are confirmed.
To make it more clear why this matters, you should know that on the Bitcoin blockchain, it’s recommended to wait for 6 block confirmations before considering a transaction final. This may take up to 1 hour which shows the upper hand blockchain networks like Fantom have with their almost instant transactions. Fantom’s transactions are considered confirmed within 1 to 2 seconds.
As the mainnet of the Fantom blockchain, Fantom Opera is an open-source, secure, and fast environment for decentralized app development.
It supports the Solidity programing language and is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing developers to build their applications the same way they do on the Ethereum blockchain.
Opera Explorer is a tool that allows you to see the latest status of the Fantom blockchain including the number of transactions, blocks, accounts, and validators.
Fantom Wallet or fWallet is the official wallet of the Fantom blockchain which allows you to send, receive, and stake the FTM token. You can also use the wallet to access different Dapps in the Fantom ecosystem.
As a Progressive Web App (PWA), you will be able to use fWallet smoothly on different platforms including Linux, Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.
You can see a list of other crypto wallets that support the FTM token here.
Dr. Ahn Byung Ik, a South Korean computer scientist founded the Fantom Foundation in 2018 while working on the scalability issues of the existing blockchains like Ethereum.
In the same year, Fantom Foundation managed to raise a total of $40.1M to support the development of the Fantom blockchain.
In late 2019, the Fantom blockchain was officially launched.
FTM is the native crypto token of the Fantom blockchain and serves various purposes on the network:
FTM has a total supply of 3.175 billion, 2.1 billion of which is currently in circulation and the rest is held for staking rewards. To offer seamless trading on different platforms, FTM supports various token standards including Ethereum’s ERC-20 and BNB Smart Chain’s BEP-2.
You can read our “An Introduction to Token Standards” article to learn more about token standards and why they exist and matter.
You can trade FTM on some cryptocurrency exchanges, like DIFX. On DIFX, FTM is available as the FTM/USDT pair for users to trade.
Sign up for a DIFX account today and start trading!