Layer 1 blockchain network Fantom has made a significant change to its staking system in an effort to become more decentralized. The Fantom Foundation recently reduced the necessity for validators to hold their own stake, making network participation much more accessible. On January 15th, the Fantom Foundation announced that it had lowered the validator staking requirement from 500,000 FTM tokens to 50,000 FTM. The report indicated that the 90% reduction followed a governance vote.
Anti-Fraud Measure in FTM
The Foundation explained that having more validators is a critical priority for any decentralized network. It also emphasized that more validators make it increasingly difficult for malicious actors to launch attacks. Additionally, with more options to choose from, transactions will reach validators faster, leading to quicker transaction processing. The Fantom Foundation stated the following in its remarks:
As long as new validators operate on quality hardware, the network will be more secure and there will be no performance degradation, maintaining certainty within 1-2 seconds.
Network Position in FTM
It was explained that the power of a validator to confirm transactions is proportional to the amount of stake, not the number of validators operated by a particular individual. Validators confirm transactions locally and share transaction batches using the Lachesis proof-of-stake consensus. After 2/3 of the validators accept them, the batches are finalized. Essentially, more Fantom validators with lower stakes aim to improve decentralized governance without reducing network speed or security.
The network’s native token FTM is trading at $0.389, down 1.4% in the last 24 hours. Moreover, it has retreated 30% from its annual peak of $0.557 at the end of December. Staking transactions have not affected FTM prices, which are 89% below their all-time high of $3.26 in October 2021. Fantom’s DeFi total value locked in is at $74 million. According to DeFiLlama, this is a 90% drop from the TVL peak in March 2022. In August, the Fantom-based SpiritSwap DEX announced it would shut down the platform due to the effects of the Multichain attack.
