What is Fantom (FTM)? The Third Largest DeFi Blockchain 2025

What is Fantom (FTM)?

By 2025, Fantom will still be a high-performance Layer-1 Blockchain designed to be faster, cheaper, and more interoperable than traditional platforms. With a processing capacity of over 20,000 transactions per second and sub-second finality, Fantom has become the third-largest DeFi ecosystem with a TVL of $4.5 billion. This EVM-compatible network supports over 1,250 dApps and maintains 67% of FTM tokens staked, significantly enhancing its security and stability through improved bridging protocols while providing advanced cross-chain interoperability.

The latest developments of Fantom (FTM) in 2025

By 2025, Fantom (FTM) has solidified its position in the DeFi ecosystem and achieved several significant advancements. The network has expanded its throughput capacity, now capable of processing over 20,000 transactions per second while maintaining sub-second finality. This technological improvement has attracted a large number of developers, with over 500 new dApps deployed in the past six months. Fantom on the Opera network.

The FTM token demonstrates outstanding stability in market performance, with a staking participation rate reaching 67% of its circulating supply. This high staking ratio helps enhance network security and reduce token price volatility.

Gate continues to support the growth of the Fantom ecosystem by enhancing trading pairs and integrating staking solutions. The platform has launched dedicated FTM liquidity pools, allowing users to maximize their yield potential while benefiting from Fantom’s performance as the third largest DeFi Blockchain by total locked value.

With the implementation of advanced bridging protocols, Fantom’s cross-chain interoperability has significantly improved, enabling seamless asset transfers between major Blockchain networks and reinforcing its position as a leading Layer-1 solution in the evolving Decentralized Finance space.

A Brief Discussion on the Third Largest DeFi Blockchain - Fantom (FTM)

What is Fantom (FTM)?

Fantom is a Layer-1 cryptocurrency project aimed at becoming a faster, cheaper, and more interoperable platform, compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which is the foundational platform network for building Ethereum projects.

How does Fantom work?

Fantom works through an updated blockchain structure known as a Directed Acyclic Graph, which enables the network to perform transaction validation faster, cheaper, and more efficiently. It also achieves this through its asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerance – it allows for different validations to occur simultaneously on the network while providing integration space for other architectural platforms beyond EVM.

What is the FTM token?

FTM is the native protocol of the network, used for transactions, governance, and rewarding the network’s validators with transaction fees.

How to buy FTM:

After creating an account on Gate, select “Trading” from the top menu bar on the official website homepage, and click on “Spot Trading” to purchase FTM. Once you enter the trading page, search for Fantom or FTM in the top left corner of the page to see which pairs are available for trading.

How to store FTM:

When you purchase assets on Gate, you are immediately provided with cutting-edge custody services, which you can access through the wallet menu in the upper right corner. Simply go to “Funds Overview” to select the account you want to view the assets for.

How to stake FTM:

Gate provides staking options for thousands of cryptocurrencies, including staking FTM. If you want to participate in Fantom staking, select “Trading” from the top menu bar on the official homepage, and click “ Wealth Management Treasure“. Once you enter the page, you can see which Fantom staking options are currently available.

This article will briefly introduce one of the most promising and feature-rich cryptocurrency projects today - Fantom (FTM). From its basic concepts and overall mechanisms to the FTM token, we can feel that Fantom is an extremely grand crypto project.

What is Fantom (FTM)?

Fantom, created in 2018, is a Layer-1 cryptocurrency project aimed at becoming a faster, cheaper, and more interoperable platform, compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which is the foundational platform network for building Ethereum-compatible projects. Fantom has its own native token FTM, which, in addition to serving as a transaction mechanism among Fantom users, has various uses and frameworks that we will discuss later in this article.

The Fantom cryptocurrency was proposed in the first official white paper released by the Fantom Foundation on October 25, 2018. Its developers include computer scientists and developers Jiho Park, Sang-Min Choi, Quan Nguyen, and Andre Cronje, who is widely known as the founder of Yearn Finance (YFI). In the Fantom white paper, the purpose of the network is very simple: to create a cost-effective, faster, and more secure Blockchain that is EVM-compatible through two main algorithmic frameworks: Directed Acyclic Graph and Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance – and so on, these terms will be elaborated on in this article.

Since its inception, Fantom has gradually become one of the major projects to date. With Layer-1 crypto solutions like Solana, Terra, and Cardano gradually rising in 2020 and 2021, Fantom quickly entered the public eye as a proven low-cost platform that is easy to build on and has immense scalability potential. Therefore, in January 2022, Fantom surpassed the BNB Smart Chain to become the third largest DeFi Blockchain in the crypto space.

How does Fantom work?

Although the Fantom Foundation was established at the end of 2018, the actual cryptocurrency was not activated until December 2019, when the network and its FTM token were ready for battle testing, serving as a means to access EVM-compatible contracts through different Blockchain infrastructures. The Fantom network is often referred to as Fantom Opera, running under a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus layer, where holders of the FTM token can use it to operate nodes, validate transactions, and earn rewards.

The use of PoS makes Fantom a more optimized network for developing decentralized applications (dApps), especially in DeFi, making it compatible with major DEX and lending projects like Curve, Sushi, or Dream Finance, co-founded by Fantom, all of which leverage the MetaMask crypto wallet as an intermediary.

DAG, the core pillar of Fantom Opera

As mentioned earlier, one of the two main frameworks that set Fantom apart is its DAG structure, which stands for Directed Acyclic Graph. The DAG can be seen as an updated version of the blockchain concept, with its own advantages compared to traditional models. You can think of the graph as a tree: simply put, the DAG is essentially a chain made up of nodes and vertical chains (as opposed to the linear blocks of a blockchain), connected by several different branches that represent the transaction process of the network. Therefore, on Fantom, each node represents a specific transaction that is processed concurrently with other operations in its blockchain. Since the network operates asynchronously, new operations and tasks can start and end at any time—this is different from traditional blockchain models, which are linear. It also allows Fantom Opera to track the entire network in a continuously updated ledger of cross-linked operations. Its speed is also very fast, with task confirmations taking less than one second.

Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance

Fantom’s aBFT is called Lachesis, which can be said to be the consensus mechanism of the entire system. In the future, Fantom will be able to implement multiple different Blockchains within the network while still using Lachesis as its core consensus protocol. One of the characteristics of Lachesis is its asynchronous and leaderless (completely decentralized) nature, which can tolerate up to one-third of seemingly instantaneous malicious nodes (Byzantine fault tolerance).

The working mechanism is as follows: First, the synchronization process of the nodes is initiated, and then a random selection algorithm is executed to start generating the next Block in the Blockchain. After selection, communication begins among the randomly chosen nodes, synchronizing the network through the DAG mechanism to verify the transaction information of the Block. Then, the information of the Block is transmitted to the responsible nodes, and after verification, the process is approved using aBFT consensus to restart with the new Block.

What is the FTM token?

As mentioned earlier, FTM is the native token of the Fantom network—similar tokens in ERC-20 (Ethereum) and BEP-20 (BNB Chain) are also available for use. Its main role in the network is to pay the validation fees for the node validation committee to verify transactions, determine solutions, and govern on-chain, allowing for voting on changes and updates to the project.

In terms of its token economics, the supply of FTM tokens is limited to 3.175 billion, with a current circulating supply of 2.54 billion. As the network expands, these tokens are distributed daily, following the framework shown below:

· 40% allocated to investors in public and private placements.

· 15% allocated to advisors, with a three-month lock-up period.

· 10% allocated to the founders, to be released two years after the network goes live.

· 3.6% is allocated to the strategic reserves designated for this protocol.

· 31.4% is used to reward nodes in the trading commission, which will be distributed by the end of 2024.

How to buy FTM

Fantom’s native token FTM can be purchased on Gate. Gate offers various business services such as cash deposits, crypto deposits, credit card transactions, and P2P trading.

Created on Gate.io exchange Account After that, select the “Trading” option from the top menu bar on the official website homepage, and click on “ Spot trading You can purchase FTM. After entering the trading page, search for Fantom or FTM in the upper left corner of the page to see which pairs can be traded - the most popular trading pair at the moment is FTM/USDT.

If your account already has the appropriate funds for the trading pair, you can place an order at any time!

How to store FTM

When you purchase assets on Gate, you are immediately provided with the most advanced custody services, which you can access through the wallet menu in the upper right corner. Simply go to “Funds Overview” to select the account whose assets you want to view.

How to Stake FTM

Gate offers staking options for thousands of cryptocurrencies, including staking FTM. If you want to participate in Fantom staking, select “Trade” from the top menu on the official homepage, and click on “Financial Products”. Once on the page, you can see the available Fantom staking options. You can also freely choose any other assets available on the Gate platform for investment and trading. Go check out the Gate platform to see what investment options interest you!