FTM serves as the native coin of a South Korean innovation project. The beta version was introduced in 2018 by Fantom FounDAtion Ltd. After the launch of its own blockchain OPERA (2019), which is compatible with Ethereum and supports smart contracts, the main version of the protocol was launched as well.
The platform’s functionality is supported by the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), which is considered the next milestone in blockchain evolution. As well as the aBFT (Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance) consensus algorithm.
Fantom solves the problems of scalability, decentralization, and security through cutting-edge development. The project team and management are experienced professionals with advanced degrees, led by Prof. Ahn Byung Ik.
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What affects the price of Fantom?
The current volatility of FTM is dependent on the following:
- Popularization of the digital asset – marketing policies, media reports and statements about Fantom that was made by major investors.
- Introduction of new funding levels for developers and extension of the grant program supported by the project.
- Collapse or rapid growth of Token #1, provoking a bearish or bullish market trend.
- The release of passive income protocols, including the DeFi sector.
- Getting FTM listed on new cryptocurrency trading platforms.
- Introduction of the new dApps applications within OPERA and extension of its virtualization architecture.
- Updating already existing protocols, integrating and launching innovative technical developments.
- Competitive project development speed.
In general, all of the above factors determine the current value of the Fantom service coin and help to build medium and long-term strategies for investing in FTM.
Buying and trading Fantom cryptocurrency
There are no problems with availability of native Fantom coin – despite its relative youth, the coin is listed on major CEX, DEX exchanges, including Binance, FTX, Huobi Global, Bybit and other centralized/decentralized trading platforms. Meanwhile, according to CoinMarketCap as of 31 July 2023, FTM boasts the following statistics:
- Total supply – 3.175 billion coins;
- Market capitalization – $668 million (#60 on the CoinMarketCap ranking);
- Trading volume (24 hours) – $47 million;
- Average trade price is $0.23 per 1 FTM;
- The most active pairs are FTM/USDT, FTM/BUSD, FTM/BTC, FTM/USD;
- The best liquidity is shown by the largest centralized crypto exchange Binance for the cryptocurrency pair FTM/USDT – 25% of the total daily trading volume.
Fantom coin staking
The Proof-of-Stake protection algorithm and the aBFT consensus protocol, which are the basis of the Fantom platform, do not imply mining the native ecosystem coin with the usual computing power – farms of GPUs, ASIC chips. However, the project offers profitable staking options, which can be conditionally divided into several types:
- Classic – to become a full-fledged node (validator, the support of the architecture). Requirements – at least 1 million FTM locked in the wallet, registration in a commercial public cloud Amazon Web Services and storage of 800 GB on t2. LaGeo EC2 or its analog. Payment is 15% of the total per year.
- Delegation of coins to validators – the maximum commission is 13% per annum, it is possible to lock crypto from 2 weeks to 1 year approximately. There is an option to stake without locking the coins, but in this case the reward drops to 4% per annum.
- Due to the compatibility of the Fantom ecosystem with the Ether and Binance blockchains, the coin is not only minted on the parent blockchain, but can also be issued using the ERC-20 or BEP-20 standard. As a result, FTM can be stored in the “native” fWallet created by the blockchain development team, as well as in a specialized Fantom Wallet based on the Ethereum online wallet. FTM can also be stored in multi-currency wallets like Coinbase, Ledger, TrustWallet.
Pros and cons of Fantom cryptocurrency
The pros include:
- High scalability and bandwidth.
- Minimal commissions allow micropayments on the network.
- Open ecosystem for developers of dApps applications.
- Attractive subsidy policy for DeFi product developers.
- Stacking with a flexible passive revenue mechanism.
The cons include:
- A relatively small number of nodes, which threatens the decentralization of the virtual architecture.
- Loses popularity to Ethereum.
- The platform is still little known, which prevents analysis and identification of long-term prospects of Fantom.
However, the developers of the platform are aware of the problems and plan to solve them.
Fantom (FTM) outlook and prospects
Fantom is “designed for the smart cities of the future” in the words of its developers. This is confirmed by the integration of the DAG mechanism and other innovative technologies in the ecosystem. However, even today, the protocol with a performance of up to 300 thousand transactions/second can be used in various sectors of the economy.
There are dozens of dApps applications in the ecosystem, such as DEX exchanges, service optimizers for passive profit, protocols for transactions with non-fungible tokens (NFT), and other high-tech startups. The team plans to launch its own virtual machine, similar to Ether’s EVM, while maintaining compatibility with Ethereum. The latter, as well as Cardano and other projects from the DeFi segment, are Fantom’s direct competitors. Time will tell who will be the winner in this race, but overall, FTM is an attractive asset for diversifying a cryptocurrency portfolio.
