Fantom is about to launch the high-performance network Sonic, which may change the Layer 2 landscape.

Recently, FTM has once again become the focus of investors in the cryptocurrency market. In March, the price of FTM soared by 150%, and even during the recent week when the overall market corrected, FTM still rose by 30% against the trend. This performance not only excites investors but also triggers a reevaluation of FTM's potential in the market.

The rise of FTM is mainly due to two factors. First, the active promotion by Andre Cronje, a director of the Fantom Foundation, has injected new energy and confidence into the project. Secondly, the upcoming launch of Fantom Sonic has sparked positive market expectations. Cronje stated that Sonic will surpass "parallel EVM" and bring revolutionary changes, further boosting investor confidence.

Fantom was initially founded by Ahn Byung in January 2018 and later taken over by Michael Kong. The project aims to address the limitations of previous generation blockchains, seeking a balance between scalability, security, and decentralization. In September 2018, Andre Cronje joined as a DeFi architect, making significant contributions to Fantom's technological breakthroughs.

Fantom adopts an improved version of the aBFT consensus mechanism based on DAG called Lachesis, enabling near-instant transaction finality and resistance to malicious actions by one-third of the nodes. In 2019, Fantom launched the Opera mainnet, which is EVM-compatible, supporting Solidity and EVM, allowing Ethereum DApps to migrate seamlessly to Fantom.

Despite being affected by Cronje's temporary departure in 2022, the FTM price has risen nearly 200% since the beginning of the year with his return and the upcoming launch of Fantom Sonic. The Fantom Foundation announced that it will launch Fantom Sonic this year, and Cronje has high hopes for it, stating that it is expected to trigger a disruptive revolution.

Fantom Sonic is an important technological upgrade of the Fantom network, aimed at enhancing the scalability and efficiency of the network. It introduces several innovative technologies and optimization solutions:

1. Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM): Provides a more efficient environment for executing smart contracts.

2. Carmen Database: Significantly reduces storage requirements and improves data management efficiency.

3. Optimized Lachesis consensus mechanism: Accelerates transaction confirmation and increases network throughput.

4. High throughput and low latency: The theoretical trading limit exceeds 2,000 transactions per second, with an average settlement time of only 1 second.

5. Smooth Upgrade: Fully compatible with existing smart contracts and tools on Fantom Opera.

The launch of Sonic marks a new chapter for Fantom, featuring characteristics such as no-fork upgrades, true parallel transactions, top-tier TPS, and finality. Currently, Fantom has a market capitalization of approximately $3 billion, and with the development of Sonic, its future value is worth looking forward to.

More than half of the DeFi projects in the Fantom ecosystem are represented, and Sonic is expected to further promote its development. The foundation plans to launch initiatives to support liquid-staking tokens, new staking mechanisms, and decentralized cross-chain solutions to enhance DeFi activities on Fantom.

To attract more quality projects, the Fantom Foundation has established the Sonic Labs incubator. Recently announced award-winning projects include the perpetual DEX Lynx, the social protocol Thunder Dome, the P2P lending platform Debita, the green tech startup KiriCoin, and the RPG blockchain game Froqorion, covering multiple innovative fields.

The emergence of Sonic has provided new ideas for solving blockchain scalability. Its performance metrics have surpassed most Layer 2 solutions, indicating that Layer 1 public chains can also enhance scalability through technological innovation. With Cronje's return, Sonic's upgrade, and the revival of the DeFi ecosystem, Fantom is expected to rise again in this bull market.