In the race for perfection, distributed ledger projects are always innovating, sinking funds into research and development in a bid to strike a perfect balance between decentralization, security and scalability in the so called blockchain trilemma. While most prefer the more proven and battle tested “blockchains”, other projects are settling for blockless technologies for good reasons.

Of the many is IOTA and now, Fantom. Both utilize the Direct Acyclic Graph (DAG) meaning the network is inherently scalable with fast throughput and implementation is cheaper for the end user despite the network utilizing a proof-of-work consensus algorithm that is known to be energy inefficient, susceptible to clogging and not scalable.

Fantom is therefore a high performance, DAG based project incorporating smart contracts with a high throughput exceeding 300k TPS. For this capability, it is nicknamed as the “Korean EOS”. Creators say they plan to disrupt the existing financial and supply chain networks simply because their platform allow participants to make near instantaneous payments all this in a scalable, low cost and efficient manner.

Unlike most DAG based products that promise heaven but end up disappointing their fan base, Fantom actually did their leg work, building a Fantom Virtual Machine on their Opera platform from where developers can build and run dApps because of the network’s smart contract capability.

The Team

Seeking to work through and deliver on the network’s objectives is a dedicated, technical and experienced team. Leading the team is Dr. Ahn Byung Ik who is the Fantom Foundation CEO and doubling up as the President of The Korea Food-Tech Association. He holds a Ph.D in computer science from Yonsei University and has been awarded the President Award for his successful IT business.

Complementing Ahn is Michael Kong who is the CIO. He is a smart contract developer who has been involved in the blockchain space for several years. He previously worked as the Chief Technology Officer at Block8, a venture capital-backed Blockchain incubator where he managed all of the business’s projects. Ashton Hettiarachi is the head of innovation and has over 10 years experience in business, the financial markets, and emerging technologies. At the moment he is the CEO at Blockchain Partners Holdings— a cryptocurrency investment and research firm located in Australia.

Advising the team is Steve Belloti and Mathew Hurr who are executive advisors, Andre Cronje who had a stint at cryptobriefings as a Crypto Code Reviewer,Quan Ngoyen and Alex Kampa a specialist on blockchain architecture, consensus models and smart contracts who are Technical advisors.

Roadmap

After concluding their rather successful ICO back in Jun 2018, Fantom validated the Lachesis Protocol in June and followed that up with the launch of a Middleware Layer Public API disclosure in Q3 2018 whose test-net was in June the same year.

Their goal now is the Completion of OPERA Core Layer Development as its Functional language and Virtual machine are in beta before launching their mainnet in Q3 2019 in the “Operetta phase” and establishing the Fantom council while simultaneously expanding globally during the “Grand Opera” from Q2 2020.

Strategic Partners

Without partners, any DLT project wouldn’t flourish and hence, fail.As a result, Fantom is aggressively searching for new partners in their bid to deliver their vision-mission statements as well as benefit investors.

As a result, Fantom has a partnership with 8Decimal Capital—a crypto venture firm that invests in projects that seek to develop blockchain infrastructure, as well as with Arrington XRP Capital, a digital asset management firm.

Another noteworthy partnership that will definitely elevate the project, lifting them to another level is their partnership with Binance chain. Announced on May 22, 2019, the aim is to create a multi asset cross chain ecosystem through interoperability in which there will be support for “a multitude of tokens including the ERC-20 standard, Fantom token standard, and the BEP-2 token standard coined on Binance Chain.” At this rate, odds are FTM could be added to the decentralized exchange boosting depth and liquidity.

Others include BiBox, DEX incorporating AI and encryption whose team has links with OkCoin and Huobi. Then there is BlackEdge Capital, Block Crafters Capital, Block Tech Capital Corporation, Block VC—whose members are from DeepMind, Google and Credit Suisse, BlockWater—a DAF, and many more including Danfoss. Fantom’s coin (FTM) is listed at ChainX and BitMax.



Tokenomics

Speed and scalability mixed with smart contract capability is what sets Fantom apart. That is where the project draws its value from and unlike others that postpone token listing due to “unfavorable” market conditions, FTM—the native token, was available for trading at the deep of last year’s crypto winter. That is why the project has an expert’s ratings of 4-stars from ICO Bench with tech leaders believing the team is very competent and would deliver assigning them a 4.9 stars.

Fantom (FTM) is a utility token based on the Ethereum platform and adhering with the ERC-20 standard. In their pre-ICO, the coin retailed at $0.03 and during the public sale, it changed hands at $0.04 between Jun 15th and 16th when the crowd funding was concluded as the project raised $39.7 million. The public funding was oversubscribed by 1 percent as the hard cap set at $39.4 was surpassed by $300k from the 40 percent of the total 3.175 billion (1.42 billion) FTM tokens set aside for investment. The platform has a 5-percent inflation rate but that will drop as more users plug in.

During the crowd funding, ETH was the only coin accepted but investors from Australia, the US, China and South Korea couldn’t participate.

30 percent of the total tokens is set aside from marketing while the team and advisors get 15 percent each. From raised funds, 30 percent will be directed towards marketing while 20 percent will cover operations and the majority, 50 percent will cater for ecosystem development and research.

Even so, because of harsh market conditions througout Q4 2018 and early 2019, the FTM is trading at $0.0138 with average trading volumes of $2.75 million attracting a market cap of $25 million from the 1,813,658,595 FTMs currently in circulation. As a result, the ROI is 0.26X against BTC, 0.62X versus ETH and down 68 percent with the USD.

FTM/BTC Price Analysis

Benefiting from the market wide recovery, FTM is bottoming up against BTC. From the weekly chart, there is a double bar bull reversal pattern and behind the upswing are high transaction volumes hinting of participation.

Besides, pasting a simple Fibonacci retracement tool between it’s high low reveal that prices are finding support from the 78.6 percent Fibonacci retracement level. As such, it is likely that prices will edge higher in weeks ahead. However, a pull back to 150-172 satoshis is ideal. On the reverse side, any surge past 231 satoshis could fuel participation with traders aiming at 400 satoshis as prices double.

NB: This is not financial advice



Short Term Catalysts

Over and above everything, Fantom want to create a platform where there is borderless connection employing DAG technology that can be employed at scale while maintaining high reliability with data sharing. That, therefore, means application of Fantom across most verticals including in telecommunications, logistics, finance and basically in all areas where efficiency, reliability, speed, cost saving through smart contracting is required.

Furthermore,the network can satisfactorily respond to Sybil and parasite attacks and transaction flooding maintaining the integrity of the system. Because of this, Fantom has a partnership with Fusion protocol, Terra Money amongst other funds and management firms spread across the world including Arrington XRP capital. Other key partners that will contribute positively towards the growth of the project is that with Binance chain and their objective of creating a digital economy by fronting interoperability, that with the Oracle corporation of the US and Korea FoodTech Corporation whose president is the CEO of the project.

Besides this trust from firms and big corporation, the team is working on staking as the network as voting capacity thanks to the dPoS inculcation allowing participants to earn rewards for their participation. That’s on top of the Reputation model that the platform make use of drawn from the number of mainnet transactions and executed automatically through smart contracts.

Besides, the network’s mainnet will launch in the Operatta stage in Q3 and with the expectations of extra liquidity from Okex, we expect FTM related trading volumes to increase in days ahead. After all, there is this support from Kucoin and ChainX. Additionally, candlestick arrangements as aforementioned are favorable. Therefore, odds are FTM prices will inch higher in response.



Long Term Catalysts

Furthermore, apart from decreasing inflation and high level partners, we must note that the project is the first DAG based platform with smart contract capabilities. As a result, developers can launch their smart contracts in a network that is inherently scalable and secured by nodes. Besides, the team can deliver.

In 2020, once the Fantom Improvement Proposal is implemented allowing for staking, nodes—delagator and validator nodes, would earn 15 percent per FTM stake decreasing to around 11 percent in mid-2023. Compared to other PoS platforms, this is a generous reward designed to attract users would shall benefit from securing the ledger while guaranteeing that the network’s throughput remain high.