Fantom

Time factors

	Protocol time	Human readable time
Protocol time 1	Block	1 second
Protocol time 2	Epoch	8 minutes
First reward delay	1 epoch	8 minutes
Reward frequency	Every epoch	8 minutes
Unbonding period	7 days	7 days

• The protocol does not have a fixed epoch time. Epoch times can fluctuate depending on network conditions.

Lifecycle

• For fluid rewards, stake is locked for a predetermined staking duration (from 2 weeks up to 1 year) selected by the staker.

• Fluid rewards are distributed all at once at the end of the staking duration.

Must know before staking

Minimum stake amount	✅	1 FTM
Partial stake changes	❌
Partial reward withdrawal	❌
Compounding	❌
Penalty	❌
Slashing	✅	Double signing - Up to 100%

• Stakers can choose to earn base rewards (stake-as-you-go) or fluid rewards.

  • Stakers can get started with base rewards by delegating without selecting a staking duration. Rewards are distributed and available to be claimed every epoch.

  • To get fluid rewards, stakers must select a staking duration from 2 weeks to 1 year. More rewards are earned by locking up longer. Rewards are not distributed until the end of the staking duration.

Advanced topics

General

• Stakers choosing fluid rewards can request to unstake before the staking duration ends. However, rewards will be reduced to half of base rewards.

  • For example, let’s assume the protocol has a base reward rate of 1.8% and fluid reward rate (at maximum staking duration) of 6%. A staker has staked 1,000 FTM and selected the maximum staking duration which would give them a 6% reward rate at the end of 365 days. Halfway through the staking duration, the staker decided to unstake. After an unbonding period of 7 days, the protocol will provide only 4.5 FTM as rewards, a 0.9% reward rate, effectively half of the base reward rate.

Rewards

• Rewards come from newly issued tokens and transaction fees.

  • Fixed issuance of tokens. Approximately 2.67 FTM is issued per block. Newly issued tokens are distributed as rewards to stakers.

  • Transaction fees. 70% of transaction fees are distributed to stakers as rewards. 15% goes to ecosystem applications, 10% goes to an ecosystem support vault and the remaining 5% gets burned.

• Factors that impact realized rewards.

  • Validator performance. Rewards coming from new issued tokens will exponentially decrease by a validator’s downtime. Rewards coming from transaction fees will linearly decrease by a validator’s downtime.

  • Staking duration will impact realized rewards. Stakers have the option to stake from 2 weeks to 1 year. More rewards are earned by locking up longer.

  • Commissions. Commissions for validators are fixed at 15%.

Risks

• Rewards coming from new issued tokens will exponentially decrease by a validator’s downtime. Rewards coming from transaction fees will linearly decrease by a validator’s downtime.

• Slashing can occur for any double signing validator. The offending validator and its delegators’ entire stake can be deducted.

• A validator is kicked out of the active set if it has a downtime longer than 72 hours.

Validators

Total validator cap	❌
Validator requirements	✅	50,000 FTM

• A validator can have up to 15 times their self-staked amount as delegations. For example, if a validator has self-stake of 1,000,000 FTM, it can get up to 15,000,000 FTM in delegations.

• Commissions for validators are fixed at 15%.

Resources

Fantom documentation: https://docs.fantom.foundation/

Fantom explorer: https://explorer.fantom.network/

Update notes

2023-06-18: Fantom decreased the self-stake requirement for validators from 500,000 FTM to 50,000 FTM (announcement).