While the bear market has been disastrous for many projects within the top 100, a select few have continued to shine – a testament to their strong fundamentals.
Despite new, competitive Layer 1s such as Sui and Aptos going to market this year, Fantom – driven by it’s consensus mechanism Lachesis, has continued to grow, expanding it’s array of ecosystem products and developer count.
With that in mind, let’s dive into the Fantom Network, it’s on-chain metrics, as well as some of it’s top dAPPS to find out if Fantom could potentially outperform in 2023.
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Why Fantom Is Still A Force to Be Reckoned With
In terms of profitability, Andre Conje’s medium article highlighted that the project has positive cash flow and has sufficient funds to remain in business for more than 30 years.
In order to support further growth of projects in the Fantom ecosystem, the team has revealed plans for a Fantom Ecosystem Vault where 10% of the gas fees paid on the Fantom network will be contributed to this vault.
To qualify for funding from this vault, projects need to submit a draft proposal that has to be reviewed and approved by the community through a vote.
The total number of voters must constitute a minimum 55% of the total FTM stakers and at least 55% of these voters must vote in favor of the draft proposal.
Fantom’s On-Chain Metrics
This provides an indication of how lively an ecosystem is based on the number of unique wallets that send an on-chain transaction in any given 24 hour time period.
The more active the network, the higher the number of daily active addresses and hence the higher the fees and revenue. While Ethereum and Solana lead the way, it does seem like a tie between Fantom and NEAR.
Both Fantom and NEAR saw a 8-10x increase in daily active addresses in 2H 2022.
While transaction volumes have significantly declined from the DeFi summer peak, Fantom’s daily transaction volume is still nearly a third that of Ethereum.
The TVL has held up remarkably well despite the bear market as compared to the other L1s, it is currently about 1.5x more than Solana and 8x that of NEAR.
Fantom is still undervalued with a Mcap/TVL ratio of 2.8 when compared to the other L1s, Avalanche in second place has a Mcap/TVL ratio of 6.7.
Top Projects To Watch on Fantom
Spooky Swap
SpookySwap is one of the largest DEXes that provide an avenue for projects on the Fantom network to list their tokens and users to trade and swap their assets.
In addition, users can bridge their assets from the Fantom network to other blockchains such as the Polygon, Avalanche and Binance Smart Chain networks.
BOO is a utility and governance token that is also used to fund SpookySwap’s rewards program; liquidity providers (LPs) can earn rewards by staking their assets. TVL locked is close to USD $100 million.
Beethoven X
Touting itself as a DeFi investment platform for the next generation, Beethoven X is a fork of Balancer and offers low-slippage and customizable liquidity pools.
There is a vault system to manage liquidity across various supported crypto assets via a generalized liquidity pool.
Similarly, Beethoven X has a native BEETS token that is used for its incentive programs and governance. TVL locked is approximately USD $45 million.
Geist Finance
Geist Finance is a decentralized lending protocol where borrowers can lock in collateral to the lending contract and borrow assets from lenders for a specified time period.
While lenders are rewarded with interests paid by the borrowers, lenders are incentivized to borrow with FTM and Geist tokens.
GEIST token holders who lock up their assets for a pre-determined period of time or stake their assets will receive GEIST rewards based on the prevailing APR rate. TVL locked is approximately USD $44 million.
Conclusion
Given the current bear market, Fantom and its entire DeFi ecosystem is not immune and has experienced a considerable decline.
While regulatory overhangs remain and there exists risks in relation to substantial centralization of the Fantom network, the Fantom Ecosystem Vault is a builders funding program that has the potential to propel Fantom to greater heights.
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[Editor’s Note: This article does not represent financial advice. Please do your research before investing.]
Featured Image Credit: ChainDebrief
Written by: Clarence Lee
Edited by: Yusoff Kim
