What Is FTM Coin
Launched to test net in 2018 with a main net launch in Dec 2019, Fantom Coin (FTM) is the native cryptocurrency of the Fantom blockchain and Fantom ecosystem. It functions as a utility token and store of value for the Fantom network. It aims, as Ethereum (ETH) and other blockchains do, to create a distributed blockchain platform ideal for a flourishing ecosystem of decentralized applications (dApps).
Its creators hoped to create a highly versatile and capable, blockchain-powered network for decentralized data sharing and implementing smart contract apps. Fantom Coin was developed with the goal in mind of creating instant transactions and lowering transaction costs. Fantom links better performance to lower fees with innovative blockchain solutions.
The token was designed with new cryptographic protocols that innovated on the ones made famous by Bitcoin (BTC) for decentralized ledger keeping, and Ethereum for decentralized computing. They include a Directed Acylic Graph (DAG) based protocol as the consensus mechanism. These alternative software architectures are built to solve scalability issues faced by other blockchains, like real time transactions for rapid network scalability to serve a mass user base.
Fantom Founders
Fantom Coin was created by Dr. Ahn Byung Ik, Matthew Hur, and others in a collaboration between developers in South Korea and Australia. Dr. Ahn is a South Korean engineer and computer scientist with a Ph.D. in computer science from Yonsei University. The idea behind FTM was to create a scalable, fast, secure, decentralized blockchain for computing, and to deliver the value of an efficient novel blockchain architecture to its users through low transaction fees.
Unique in how the team came up with the idea, was how Fantom was originally envisioned— as a software infrastructure for smart cities, to smartly manage the probably unavoidable "Internet of Things" as devices continue to become more connected and array more capable and different functionally articulate sensors. The team had transportation network management, smart homes, smart schools, and smart hospitals in mind as they began the project.
Then made the pivot to first form a distributed financial system on a decentralized blockchain as the nucleus for their software solutions after the emergence of cryptocurrencies. Today the team working for the Fantom Foundation includes members from all around the world, including Europe and South Africa as well as Asia and Australia, using Slack, Telegram, and conference calls to coordinate. The project originally issued a supply of 3.175 billion Fantom coins. FTM Coin's total outstanding supply is capped.
The entire supply of FTM coin was issued at the token generation event (TGE) or initial coin offering (ICO), including some 31% of the token generation as a reserve for rewards for staking, and 3.6% in a strategic reserve with no vesting schedule. Staking rewards will continue to be distributed to participating Fantom nodes daily until the year 2024.
FTM usage
FTM price is affected by its underlying business, supply/demand economics, and capital inflows. Scroll to the top of the page for the latest data on FTM price. FTM coin is used to settle remittances or payments, record transactions, maintain account ledgers, and incentivize and support the deployment of smart contracts, which are specially made apps saved forever on the Fantom blockchain, that can be called by any device on the network using the blockchain's protocol to call the app and run it or ask a node on the network to run it. Fantom was built by blockchain engineers with fast transactions and low fees in mind.
Merchants in South Korea are using apps powered by the platform to transact business with customers, even for real world goods like take out, with Fantom reportedly a major point-of-sale provider in South Korea, partnering with thousands of restaurants to help merchants and customers settle transactions and do business. dApps operate on an application layer that lives on top of the Fantom Opera chain, a base blockchain layer that runs to provide compatibility for finalizing transactions, account updates, and related metadata.
FTM Network Security
The Fantom Coin smart contract platform uses a consensus mechanism based on a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) that the foundation calls the Lachesis protocol. Lachesis was the name of one of the Three Fates in Greek mythology. According to the foundation, Fantom Coin's DAG employs an asynchronous non-deterministic algorithm "to achieve practical Byzantine fault tolerance (pBFT)."
That means, although not exacting to abstract mathematical standards, the network is designed to reliably store and preserve blockchain data for all practical intents and purposes, to a Byzantine fault-tolerant standard of durability. That is to say, tolerant to the set of potential errors and failures presented in the Byzantine General's problem. Byzantine Fault Tolerance is a qualitative standard of reliability that has been met in the commercial airline engine and nuclear power plant industries.
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