Bullish Case for Fantom

Fantom is about to get a major speed upgrade with its Sonic technology.

According to the Fantom Foundation, Sonic can support up to 2,048 transactions per second (TPS) and an average finality of around 1.1 seconds. 

This means quicker confirmations and smoother experiences for users.

The upgrade will target a 90% reduction in database storage, making it less demanding on hardware and more accessible to everyone. 

Sonic will also lower collateral requirements of 50,000 FTM for stakers, in addition to launching a new virtual machine.

The virtual machine will be compatible with Ethereum’s familiar programming languages. And developers can easily switch over and enjoy the benefits of Sonic without needing to learn new tools.

Unlike some solutions, Sonic achieves all this without needing to split the network (sharding), keeping the network secure and efficient.

There Will be Two Testnets

The Fantom Foundation deployed both a public and a closed testnet for Sonic.

The closed testnet is intended to showcase Sonic’s maximum capabilities, while the public testnet is open for any user to explore.

According to the team, they are feeding the closed testnet with more than 2,000 TPS or 175M synthetic transactions daily to simulate its peak performance. 

This compares to a throughput limit of 30 TPS for the existing Fantom mainnet.

The public testnet is also being fed synthetic transactions, but at a reduced rate of 130 TPS to leave room for transactions executed by public users.

What Firedancer did for Solana, Sonic will do for FTM

Firedancer is a new high-performance validator client for Solana, written in C++ programming language.

In a live demo broadcast in 2022, Firedancer demonstrated an ability to process over 1 million transactions per second. This figure is many times greater than Solana’s current theoretical limit of 50,000 tps, and far exceeds the amount of transactions leading service providers like Visa typically process.

Beyond its performance advantages, Firedancer provides Solana validator nodes with a fourth software option to choose from; reducing Solana’s vulnerability to bugs, code exploits and attacks.

On the Fantom side, Sonic throughput is anticipated to achieve beyond 2,000 transactions per second with a one-second finality, ensuring instant irreversible transactions.

The launch of Sonic is expected to coincide with Fantom’s halving event (reduction in new coin creation) in spring 2024. This combination could lead to a significant increase in Fantom’s (FTM) price.