DeFi
Fantom DeFi jumps 20% as Sonic upgrade rolls out – DL News
- Fantom is about to make a major upgrade.
- The once-thriving blockchain has had its best week since details of this upgrade were revealed in March.
Investors are pouring money into the beleaguered Fantom blockchain ahead of Sonic, a major upgrade expected to bring better performance as well as a series of airdrops.
Fantom’s token, FTM, is up 25% since validators – the distributed network of computers that run the blockchain – began updating their software on Tuesday.
Since Monday, the total value of cryptocurrencies deposited in Fantom’s DeFi ecosystem has increased by 20%, to $147 million, according to data from DefiLlama.
Fantom was affected by the Multichain crypto bridge hack in July 2023.
Once the upgrade is complete, Fantom will process up to 2,000 transactions per second and provide enhanced, simplified security. liquid stakingand, possibly, greater throughput thanks to zero knowledge technologyMichael Kong, CEO of the Fantom Foundation, previously said. DL News.
Fantom is currently processing a maximum of 200 transactions per second, according to the Fantom Foundation.
Additionally, some users to qualify for airdrops, according to Kong.
“The more you interact with the network, the more value you bring to the network, which will lead to a larger airdrop,” he said.
Kong declined to share more information about the upcoming airdrops to avoid attracting mercenary users looking to “gamble” with the blockchain.
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Two-thirds of Fantom’s 60 validators need to be upgraded for Sonic to take effect network-wide. As of Friday, 25 validators had updated their software.
The upgrade will test whether Fantom can make a comeback after a devastating hack gutted a related protocol in 2023.
Founded by infamous DeFi kingpin Andre Cronje, Fantom was once a top five blockchain with nearly $8 billion locked in its DeFi ecosystem.
It has been touted as an “Ethereum killer,” alongside other high-speed, low-cost networks like Avalanche, Solana, Terra, and Tron.
Like the rest of the crypto-economy, it collapsed after the collapse of Terra in 2022.
It received another blow last July, when crypto “bridge” Multichain suffered an apparent hack.
Multichain said $125 million in cryptocurrencies were transferred “abnormally to unknown addresses.” The company also confirmed rumors that its co-founder was arrested by Chinese police last May.
So-called bridges like Multichain allow the transfer of tokens between otherwise incompatible blockchains.
The hack shook Fantom users, many of whom had used Multichain to import assets from other blockchains onto Fantom.
Users would send crypto tokens such as Ether or USDC to Multichain. The protocol would then create a Fantom-compatible version of the deposited tokens for use on Fantom.
When cryptocurrencies deposited on Multichain were stolen, many assets on Fantom became effectively unsecured.
The total value of cryptocurrencies locked in Fantom was around $260 million just before the hack. Until Kong revealed Sonic in March, the price was below $100 million.
Aleks Gilbert is a New York-based journalist who covers DeFi. Do you have any advice? Send him an email to aleks@dlnews.com.