Fantom: Innovating Technology and Planning for Growth

Key Insights

• Fantom is a Layer-1 (L1) blockchain with smart contract capabilities that supports various DeFi, NFT, and gaming applications.
• Its core technological stack includes an asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerant (aBFT) consensus mechanism known as Lachesis, and an EVM-compatible state machine called Opera. 
• Fantom network activity has followed the broader market downtrend since the last bull cycle. However, average daily transactions and active addresses have grown YTD versus the pre-bull run levels of late 2021.
• Fantom aims to foster greater support for its builders and developers through initiatives like the Gas Monetization program and Ecosystem Vault.
• Fantom plans to introduce network improvements this fall, such as a new StateDB storage system, Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), and account abstraction.

Background

Founded in late 2019, Fantom is an open-source smart contract platform that addresses blockchain scaling and usability with its novel aBFT consensus mechanism, founded by  Andre Cronje and Michael Kong.  Cronje is widely known as the “father of DeFi” and was ranked #2 in Cointelegraph’s 2021 top 100 most influential people in Blockchain. Kong was previously the CTO at Digital Currency Holdings, where he advised a cryptocurrency hedge fund and ICO initiatives from 2017 to 2019, one of which being Fantom’s ICO in June 2018.

Before the Fantom blockchain was developed, FTM was made available through its ICO as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. After over a year of development, Fantom launched its mainnet on December 27, 2019. Subsequently, the migration of the ERC-20 FTM token to the native Fantom network token was enabled through centralized exchanges.

The Fantom Foundation primarily supports the Fantom network. It does so by spearheading the research and development work and collaborating with partners.

Technology

Fantom uses a Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerant (aBFT) consensus mechanism known as Lachesis. Lachesis provides security to Fantom's EMV-compatible smart contract chain called Opera. Because Fantom nodes reach consensus independently, each node verifies transactions asynchronously and is not required to incorporate other blocks sequentially—this speeds up transaction execution and finality.

Currently, the Fantom network operates with sub-second finality (~900 ms). It's important to note that fast finality isn't without its trade-offs, so only some networks, like Fantom, are geared for subsecond finality. The benefits of fast finality may be suitable for developers building solutions across various use cases.

Some of the benefits that Fantom's subsecond finality brings include:

• Transaction Certainty: Fast finality ensures that transactions are confirmed and cannot be reversed easily. This certainty is essential for applications that require quick settlement and immediate confirmation, such as financial transactions, supply chain tracking, and real-time asset trading.
• User Experience: Fast finality leads to a better user experience by minimizing the time users wait for their transactions to be confirmed. This is particularly important for applications like point-of-sale payments, where users expect swift transaction approval.
• Energy Efficiency: Some consensus algorithms, like PoS and DPoS, are more energy-efficient than Proof-of-Work (PoW). By implementing fast finality in these algorithms, blockchain networks can achieve both energy efficiency and quick transaction confirmations.
• Real-World Use Cases: Many real-world applications require low-latency transaction finality. These include micropayments, instant remittances, tokenized assets for in-game purchases, and supply chain tracking. Fast finality enables these use cases to operate effectively on the blockchain.

Consensus

Lachesis’s asynchronous approach to consensus differs from probabilistic approaches, such as those utilized by Bitcoin and Ethereum. In probabilistic consensus, validators agree upon entire blocks by sending the proposed blocks to one another. However, Fantom validators agree upon the transactions and data that individually make up each block rather than the blocks themselves. As such, Fantom validators do not send blocks to one another. Ultimately, this design allows the network to operate without issues stemming from block reorgs and the longest chain rule. The longest chain rule does not work for high throughput networks like Fantom because it leads to too many forks, resulting in network inefficiencies and security risks.

In Fantom’s Lachesis consensus mechanism, Fantom validators run a local directed acyclic graph (DAG) composed of “events.” Each event contains transactions from the Fantom network. As each validator independently orders transactions and events, each validator calculates an exact order of events. Validators further divide events into confirmed events and unconfirmed events:

• Confirmed Events - Confirmed events contain data and information that the validator has received from other validators within the network. As such, a validator can compute the exact order of transactions within a confirmed event block.
• Unconfirmed Events - Unconfirmed events contain data and information that other validators have not yet propagated. As such, a validator can only partially order an unconfirmed block event.

As validators create events, they also share them with other validators across the network. As an event spreads across the network, more validators incorporate the event within the validators’ local DAGs. Once 2/3 of all validators agree on a batch of confirmed events, the batch is organized as a block and added to the Fantom ledger.

Delegated Proof-of-Stake

Fantom utilizes Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) to ensure validators behave honestly. On April 2, 2023, Proposal 34 was passed to reduce the minimum FTM required to stake from 500,000 FTM to 50,000 FTM (~$10,000 at the time of writing). The minimum hardware requirements for a Fantom validator are as follows:

• AWS EC2 m5.xlarge with 4 vCPUs (3.1 GHz)
• At least 1 TB of Amazon EBS General Purpose SSD (gp2) storage (or equivalent).

To operate a validator, one will need to stake at least 50,000 FTM (once it goes into effect), meet the hardware requirements, and run the latest installations of Go and Opera. Doing so would allow validators to participate in the production of blocks on Fantom and earn staking rewards.

Furthermore, native FTM tokenholders can stake (delegate) a minimum of 1 FTM to any active Fantom validator without operating a validator themselves. Fantom uses a fluid staking model where stakers can delegate to any validator without a lock-up period for the minimum APR or select a lock-up period between 14 to 365 days for an increased APR. Further, there is an unbonding time (time between unstaking and funds becoming available) equal to seven days. Validators with more stake have greater control over the network. However, the maximum validator size is capped at 15x the self-stake amount to limit stake concentration and facilitate the expansion of the network's validator set.

As of August 15, 2023, the state of Fantom's security and decentralization consisted of the following:

• Active validators: 60
• Validator stake: ~200 million FTM
• Delagator stake: ~1.16 billion FTM
• Total stake: ~1.36 billion FTM ( ~$315 million) representing the economic security of the Fantom network.
• Nakamoto coefficient: 4

Notably, Fantom's staking ratio (the proportion of Fantom's total supply actively being staked) is relatively high versus other networks like Ethereum and Polygon. At the time of writing, Fantom's staking ratio is 49% versus Ethereum's 20% and Polygon's 36%.

Fantom's staking ratio represents a level of commitment that increases the economic cost for malicious actors seeking to attack or compromise the network, making the network more secure against attacks that could otherwise stem from the "nothing at stake" problem.

A high staking ratio also indicates that a substantial portion of the community is economically motivated to prevent disruptions, which leads to a more stable network environment.

Finally, with a substantial number of tokens staked, a reduced supply is available for trading on exchanges. This reduced supply can mitigate price volatility, as fewer tokens are available for speculative trading.

Ultimately, with time and the passing of Proposal 34, the Fantom network should increase its staking participation, grow its validator set, and facilitate greater decentralization.

Rewards and Penalties

There are two forms of rewards that validators and their delegators receive:

• Staking Rewards - At genesis, ~1.04 billion native FTM (32.75% of the maximum token supply) was allocated to staking rewards. The validator reward rate was set to 6% by governance. The amount of staking rewards each validator receives depends on the amount of FTM staked/delegated to it and its uptime. The following formula can calculate the reward weight for each validator:
  • Base reward weight = FTM staked * (uptime^2)
• Block Rewards - All transaction fees from blocks, paid in native FTM, accumulate to the Fantom SFC smart contract. Of these transaction fees, 70% of the FTM is distributed to validators, with each validator’s share calculated by the following formula:
  • Transaction fees reward rate = (originated fee + 0.45 * sent fee) * uptime.
  • Originated fee = fees from all transactions the validator included in its events.
  • Sent fee = Total fees of transactions created by the validator and its delegators.

Tokenholders that delegate stake receive native FTM rewards proportional to the amount delegated minus the 15% delegation fee charged by the validator.

Fantom validators can be penalized and have their entire stake plus delegated FTM slashed in the event of a “fork event.” Fork events are created when a validator does not use its previous event block as the parent for its newest event block. Once slashed, the validator is no longer included in the active set of validators.

Smart Contract Execution

As mentioned, Lachesis provides security with its novel consensus design to Fantom’s EVM-compatible smart contract chain, Opera. Opera allows smart contracts to be written in Solidity and Vyper, two of the most popular languages for Web3 developers.

Further, Fantom is developing a new state machine called the Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), a standalone VM compatible with Solidity and Vyper languages. It will allow for more efficient smart contract execution. The FVM’s release date is still pending.

Resource Model

Many blockchains have a gas-based resource model. Users spend a gas token to cover the various costs of a transaction, including processing the transaction and storing the data. Like most EVM-compatible blockchains, the Fantom gas fee encompasses all the components involved with updating the Fantom state.

Accounts

As an EVM-based chain, Fantom uses an account-based accounting standard. Therefore, there are two different account types:

• Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) - EOAs are user-controlled accounts accessible through private keys (i.e., an account created through a wallet application such as MetaMask).
• Contract Accounts - Smart contract accounts that are controlled by the logic of the smart contract code, not any private keys.

FTM

In addition to Fantom’s FTM mainnet token, FTM is ERC-20 and BEP-2 compatible, allowing users to transfer FTM between Ethereum and BNB Chain’s Beacon Chain. The asset serves the following functions:

• Securing the network (validator and delegator staking).
• Payment for network gas fees.
• Onchain governance.
• Medium of exchange across the Fantom ecosystem.

Initial Token Distribution

FTM has a maximum token supply of 3.175 billion, representing a fully diluted market cap of ~$754 million as of August 15, 2023. Of the total supply, ~1.9 billion FTM (~59.8%) was sold in an initial coin offering (ICO) as follows:

• Founders and Team (7.5%): Fantom allocated ~238.13 million FTM to its founders and team.
• Advisors/Contributors (12%): Fantom allocated ~381 million FTM to its advisors and contributors.
• Strategic Reserve (6%): Fantom allocated ~190.5 million FTM to a strategic reserve.
• Public Sale (1.57%): Fantom sold ~49.85 million FTM in a public sale. Tokens were sold at an average price of $0.04, raising ~$2 million. Participants were chosen through a lottery system, and potential participants had to complete a KYC/AML check to participate.
• Seed Sale (3.15%): Fantom sold ~100 million FTM in a seed sale. Tokens were sold at an average price of $0.016, raising ~$1.6 million.
• Private Sale I (25.35%): Fantom sold ~804.86 million FTM in the first of two private sales. Tokens were sold at an average price of $0.031, raising ~$24.8 million.
• Private Sale II (11.69%): Fantom sold ~371.16 million FTM in the second of two private sales. Tokens were sold at an average price of $0.035, raising ~$12.9 million.

Beyond the 59.8% supply that was sold, 32.75% (~1.04 billion FTM tokens) was earmarked for block rewards, and 7.5% (~238 million FTM tokens) was allocated to the founders and team. All of the initial allocations are fully vested.

Supply Dynamics

Token supply dynamics changed between Q4'22 and Q1'23. Through onchain governance, Proposal 23 reduced the staking reward parameter, and validator rewards were reduced from 14% to 6%. As a result, the inflation rate that targets a 2028 block reward end date decreased. In addition to the 6% rate of emissions for block rewards, there are two forms of deflationary pressure on FTM:

• Burning - Initially, 30% of all network transaction fees were burned. However, in late 2022, Fantom's Ecosystem Vault and Gas Monetization program were introduced, and the burn rate of transaction fees was subsequently reduced from 30% to 5%.
• Slashing - Validator node rewards in FTM can be slashed if a transaction is double-signed or a validator behaves maliciously. Slashed rewards are subsequently burned.

By August 15, 2023, over 10.5 million FTM (0.3% of its 3.175 billion total supply) had been burned.

Fantom Network and Ecosystem Overview

Network Activity

User activity on the Fantom network has undergone several bull and bear cycles since its launch in 2018. Notable activity on the network began during the first half of 2021, with daily transactions and active addresses averaging ~150,000 and 6,000, respectively.

By the second half of 2021, a bull cycle was underway, and the network finished the back half of 2021, averaging ~650,000 daily transactions and ~55,000 daily active addresses. For perspective, daily transactions reached an all-time high of over 1.8 million and eclipsed Ethereum's peak of ~1.7 million during the 2021 bull market. However, activity on the network did not maintain as the broader market moved into a bear market in early 2022. Fantom network activity has followed the broader market downtrend since.

With that in mind, average daily transactions and active addresses have still grown YTD versus the pre-bull run levels of late 2021, averaging ~310,000 and ~46,000, respectively.

Ecosystem

Fantom’s network activity stems from an ecosystem of DeFi protocols, NFT marketplaces and projects, gaming applications, and more. The drivers of Fantom’s network activity also include its growth strategy to attract developers and grow its ecosystem.

Growth Strategy

One of Fantom’s notable initiatives for 2023 is its Gas Monetization program. This program aims to reward high-quality applications and offer a sustainable income for developers with a portion of the transaction fees they generate for the network.

Since its inception, the Gas Monetization program has accrued ~118,000 FTM as rewards for protocols.

Alongside the Gas Monetization program, Fantom plans on incentivizing builders and developers through its Ecosystem Vault. In Q4 2022, the Fantom Foundation launched the Ecosystem Vault, introducing a decentralized funding process to support ecosystem builders. With the initiative, one-third of the 30% transaction fee burn rate (at the time) would be redirected to a Special Fee Contract (SFC). Through onchain governance, validators can allocate funds from the SFC.

As of writing, the Ecosystem Vault had amassed ~750,000 FTM, with no funding proposals yet approved. However, at the end of June 2023, the Fantom Foundation introduced a new governance proposal to expedite the distribution of these funds using the Gitcoin Grants program. The first round of funding for Fantom projects began in early 2023, with Fantom Foundation as the matching partner.

DeFi

The Fantom network has roots that go back to the early days of DeFi and has hosted some of the first DeFi protocols, including Curve, Yearn, and SushiSwap. Today, the network hosts ~300 DeFi protocols and is ranked sixth by the number of DeFi protocols leveraging the network’s functionality. However, Fantom has moved from being in the top 5 to 24 in terms of TVL.

At the beginning of 2023, the Fantom DeFi ecosystem hosted a healthy ~$445 million in TVL led by top DeFi protocols, including Geist Finance, SpookySwap, Tarot, Beethoven X, and Curve. However, the DeFi ecosystem has shifted dramatically YTD, with TVL in USD down ~80%. At the time of writing, the Fantom network hosts about $94 million in TVL, with the top five protocols now consisting of SpookySwap, Tarot, Beethoven X, Scream, and Stargate.

The Multichain bridge exploit resulted in the dramatic shift in Fantom’s DeFi ecosystem. As an independent Layer-1 blockchain, Fantom does not have any “canonical bridges.” That is, Fantom relies on third-party bridging protocols to support non-native assets such as WETH or WBTC. Multichain, prior to its exploit, was one of the most popular bridging solutions for Fantom.

On July 6, 2023, Peckshield reported a potential exploit of the Multichain: Fantom Bridge, highlighting outbound transfers of 7,214 WETH (~13.6 million), 1,023.8 WBTC (~31 million), and 57.8 million USDC. The Multichain team confirmed that these were unauthorized transactions and advised all users to stop using Multichain services. Additionally, all Multichain bridged assets were depegged on Fantom’s decentralized exchanges, such as SpookySwap, and protocols like Geist Finance were forced to shut down.

In response, the Fantom Foundation indicated it is taking a “hands-on approach.” It has been assisting Axelar Network and Layer Zero by seeding additional bridging liquidity for their Fantom pools. This approach seems to be working, as Stargate has facilitated ~$46 million in bridging volume in the past month. Furthermore, Axelar and Layer Zero now support bridged versions of USDC, USDT, WETH, and WBTC on Fantom.

The Fantom Foundation is also exploring additional long-term solutions to prevent any other Multichain-like exploits. Namely, the Foundation is exploring canonical bridges between Ethereum and Fantom using optimistic rollups. As of writing, these plans are purely exploratory and have yet to receive explicit commitment.

NFTs

Fantom has attracted a diverse group of artists, collectors, and 50 NFT collections. Ancestral Umans, Bit Uman, and Ancestral Umans Leaders are some of its early projects to gain notoriety.

Fantom has experienced a resurgence in secondary NFT sales volume after slow growth through 2022. NFT secondary sales volume (USD) has increased by over 200% YTD, supported by NFT marketplaces like NFTKEY and PaintSwap.

The increase in activity coincided with several recent developments across the Fantom NFT space, including:

• Bounce Finance - A decentralized auction protocol integrated with Fantom. The protocol enables a secure auction experience with a range of products.
• GHOST - A cross-chain interoperability platform that provides anonymity for NFTs launched ghostNFT on Fantom, enabling NFT collateralization for ERC-721 NFT collections.
• NOVABLOX - An NFT utility platform introduced non-custodial ERC-1155 NFT staking on Fantom, enabling users to utilize their NFTs through staking.
• Mummy Finance - A swap and perpetual DEX that lets traders access blue-chip collections with high liquidity. It recently gained steam thanks to its Mummy NFT initiative, which lets users mint and stake their NFTs.
• LayerZero Fantom Bridging Campaign - Fantom launched a campaign to reward users for bridging a minimum of $100 in newly issued lzUSDC, lzUSDT WETH, and WBTC to Fantom using Stargate Finance, made possible by LayerZero’s support of USDC, USDT, WETH, WBTC, and more on Fantom. The campaign has already resulted in over 14,000 mints.

Gaming

Gaming activity on the Fantom network is still in its early stages. In addition to Fantom’s growth initiatives, several developer tools have been rolled out to spur growth in the Fantom GameFi sector.

• Balthazar - Gaming infrastructure that offers its Babylon SDK to enable developers to easily integrate non-custodial wallets into their games.
• MetaFab - Gaming infrastructure that allows developers to build an experience that does not require gamers to have blockchain knowledge while still providing the benefits of digital ownership.
• thirdweb - A suite of services that streamline the creation of smart contracts and integration of blockchain into games. Its services include its Solidity SDK for prebuilt contracts to deploy with optional extensions such as NFTs, a GamingKit for prebuilt contracts that create marketplaces, and the Unity SDK for integrating Web3 functions into games built with Unity.
• Moralis - Offers the Moralis Metaverse SDK for games to plug into Unity and enable developers to leverage Web3 data APIs. The SDK also simplifies the minting and trading of NFTs and wallet connections.
• Wombat - Enables developers to integrate NFTs into their games with Game Studios, which offers services like minting NFTs for players with the Wombat API. Developers can also list their games on the Wombat mobile application and gain exposure to the platform’s existing user base.
• Lava Network - Aggregates node providers to give wallets, block explorers, and applications RPC endpoints for more than 20 chains. It offers its Lava SDK, a TypeScript/JavaScript implementation of the Lava Protocol. The SDK enables direct communications between developers and RPC providers.

Recent developments leveraging such tools included those with the following:

• SUPA Foundation - A play-and-earn metaverse that includes diverse games. It announced the launch of its SUPA Portal Marketplace and beta launch of its game Internal Conflict.
• 8PLAY.GAMES - An arcade platform that released Granary Dash, the platform's first 3D game.
• Estfor Kingdom - After becoming the first-place winner of the Q1 Fantom Hackathon, Estfor Kingdom launched its browser-based idle game. It became a top 50 crypto game (by dApp radar) within three days of its official opening and is now ranked within the top 30.

Other Use Cases, Infrastructure, and Tooling

Outside of the DeFi, NFT, and GameFi sectors, noticeable network activity has stemmed from other use cases like the credentialing social application, Galxe.

Galxe has emerged as a leading social application through 2023. The application has grown its total of UAWs (unique active wallets) from 966,000 in Q1 2023 to 3.4 million (+255%) in Q2.

Further, Fantom has several integrations and partnerships that range from various oracles and bridge infrastructure (beyond Multichain) to tooling, governments, and enterprises. In light of the recent events surrounding Multichain, the Fantom ecosystem aims to expand infrastructure to mitigate ecosystem reliance on a single provider. Recent examples of such expansion include developments with the following:

• LayerZero - LayerZero’s bridge Stargate gives users access to several more tokens in the Fantom ecosystem. The bridge allows users to transfer Fantom-based tokens through a locking and burning mechanism. For transferring or swapping native assets, Stargate makes use of several interconnected liquidity pools across several chains. As a result, lzUSDC, lzUSDT, lzDAI, lzWETH, lzWBTC, and lzCRV have been deployed on Fantom.
• Axelar - As its own Proof-of-Stake blockchain, Axelar can connect to several other chains through gateways set up by smart contracts. On Fantom specifically, Axelar leverages the Squid protocol to offer cross-chain swaps with a single click. The integration has resulted in the deployment of axlUSDC, axlUSDT, axlWETH, and axlWBTC on Fantom.
• Polyhedra Network - Polyhedra's zkBridge, which went live on Fantom. The zkBridge is an efficient and trustless interoperability protocol that uses zkSNARK technology. Polyhedra also offers a zk light client built on LayerZero, which also announced support for Fantom.
• deBridge - A cross-chain protocol that added support for Fantom, enabling market participants to efficiently price and perform cross-chain transfers to and from the Fantom network.
• hashport - An interoperability solution integrated Fantom into its portal. It enables users to port tokens between the Fantom and Hedera networks.

While the DeFi ecosystem shuddered after the Multichain debacle, Fantom continues to build on its strategy to deploy financial and human capital to support DeFi and grow its ecosystem across NFTs, gaming, and beyond.

Roadmap

Just as Fantom released its go-opera version 1.1.2-rc.5 to further optimize the network in early 2023, the Fantom Foundation laid out robust plans for the rest of the year.

Technical Improvements

The Fantom Foundation introduced a testing framework for the Fantom network, Project Aida. Project Aida identified bottlenecks for processing times within the Fantom network. Notably, Fantom’s EVM consumes 13% of the time spent on block processing, while Fantom’s StateDB consumes 84%. Based on this experiment, the Fantom Foundation proposed two solutions, Carmen and Tosca, to increase the scalability of Fantom.

Carmen: New Storage System

Project Carmen aims to implement a new storage system for Fantom. Currently, Fantom uses a key-value storage system that results in slower access times. Project Carmen seeks to address this by decreasing access times through a file-based StateDB. A file-based StateDB makes managing and updating state information more efficient through several functions, such as removing the need to map data to key/value stores, not using RLP encoding, and not actively pruning Merkle Patricia Trie (MPT).

Tosca: Fantom Virtual Machine

Project Tosca aims to implement a new upgrade to update Fantom’s EVM with the Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM). The FVM is similar to its current EVM, as both are compatible with Solidity and Vyper, but the FVM offers improvements that should increase the speed of execution on Fantom. The FVM uses dynamic translation, which allows code related to smart contracts to be translated into a more efficient instruction format. Dynamic translation also enables multiple instructions to be merged into one “super-instruction,” decreasing the number of executions needed.

Account Abstraction

All blockchains must deal with the complexity related to wallet management. For non-native users, self-custodying crypto can be a daunting task. The Fantom Foundation is attempting to alleviate issues related to wallet management by introducing account abstraction on its mainnet. Through this initiative, Fantom improves upon the current account infrastructure on EVM networks by enhancing the application experience and enabling social recovery options for wallets. These features will be achieved by no longer distinguishing between EOA accounts and contracts for wallets. Instead, every wallet will become a smart contract. As a result, EOAs can be authorized to interact with smart contract wallets, allowing users to interact with their wallets using something as simple as an email and password.

Closing Summary

Fantom has a history of development dating back to early 2018. The network uses a novel Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism called Lachesis, which provides security for Fantom's EVM-compatible smart contract chain Opera. Ultimately, Fantom's design addresses blockchain scaling issues and delivers fast finality and cost-efficient transaction execution.

Fantom’s fast finality and cost-effective transaction execution enable transaction certainty, energy efficiency, and a better user experience, among other benefits. Each is an example of what is required for real-world use cases, such as micropayments, instant remittances, tokenized assets for in-game purchases, and supply chain tracking.

Beyond its technical benefits, the drivers of Fantom's network activity and fundamental value accrual include its growth strategy to attract developers and grow its ecosystem. Several growth initiatives have been established, including Fantom's recent Ecosystem Vault and Gas Monetization program, which started building momentum in 2023.

With developments pioneered by Andre Cronje, Fantom’s network hosts dozens of early DeFi protocols, including Curve, Yearn, and SushiSwap. Fantom’s ecosystem consists of over 300 DeFi protocols, NFT marketplaces and projects, gaming applications, and more.

Despite the Multichain exploit that significantly impacted Fantom's DeFi ecosystem in July 2023, the network is positioned to continue driving adoption. In its current state, the network already has fast finality and cost-effective transaction execution, which enable transaction certainty, energy efficiency, and a smooth user experience. On top of these features, there are significant network upgrades on the horizon, including a new StateDB storage system, Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), and account abstraction. Further, Fantom aims to continue drawing in development with the benefits its network design inherently offers and build on its growth strategies to expand its ecosystem.