The Fantom Foundation, which oversees layer 1 blockchain network Fantom, has drastically lowered its validator staking requirements. This change, confirmed by the Foundation in a January 15 post and following a governance vote concluded in June 2023, marks a strategic shift in Fantom’s approach to network security and security. Dispersion.
The staking threshold for validators on the Fantom network, previously set at 500,000 FTM tokens, has been reduced by a massive 90% to 50,000 FTM, equivalent to approximately $19,500 at current market prices. This move aims to strengthen network security by increasing the number of validators, making it more difficult for malicious actors to compromise the network.
The rationale for this decision is based on the principle that a larger number of validators makes a decentralized network more resilient to attacks. Validators on the Fantom network play an important role by tying and sharing transactions with other validators, achieving finality when at least 2/3 consensus is reached. The foundation claims that this increase in validators will accelerate transaction verification without compromising network speed or security, keeping the time to final completion on the network at 1-2 seconds.
In addition to enhancing security, this reduction in staking requirements democratizes access to validator state, allowing more participants to contribute to network operations. Despite these changes, the Foundation is confident that there will be no negative impact on network performance, as the security and efficiency of transaction verification is proportional to the amount staked by the validators, not the number of validators. Therefore, a larger validator with a higher stake has the same power as several smaller validators with a lower stake.
This is not the first such initiative by the Phantom Foundation. Discussions about lowering the minimum FTM requirement to run a node have begun as early as February 2022. As of the latest data, Fantom’s network consists of 58 validators. This is a small number compared to large networks such as Ethereum, which boasts over 1.1 million validators.
Despite the positive impact on network security and decentralization, recent changes have not had a significant impact on FTM’s market performance. As of this writing, FTM’s price is trading at $0.389, down 1.4% on the day. This decline is part of a broader trend that has seen FTM prices fall 89% from their October 2021 highs.
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