Fantom (FTM) Turns “Insanely Fast” After Upgrade, Token Trades near Monthly Peak

Fantom is running “insanely fast” after a recent update, as noted by users. The blockchain’s main goal is to move at the speed of the Internet for the fastest decentralized apps. After a recent network upgrade, FTM also recovered faster, trading close to its one-month peak. 

The Fantom network is going through an overhaul, as it unrolls the Sonic update to more users. Fantom reached the capacity of its Opera network between 2019 and 2022, during the boom of DeFi. Since then, the Sonic network is an entirely new approach to connect L1 and L2 networks. 

The Sonic upgrade is now being tested by users, claiming to make the network “insanely fast”. 

The intention of the Sonic network was to handle 2K transactions per second, a factor of 10 better than the old Opera network. The new network’s validators are adding the upgrade and will soon achieve full Sonic consensus. The move would turn Fantom into one of the fastest networks, ready to compete for apps and liquidity. 

Fantom was among the central blockchains during the 2021-2022 boom. It is also one of the few to respond to the overload and go though a major upgrade for speed. After Sonic, the Fantom network will have a capacity for 180M transactions per day, with nearly-instant propagation and finality.

Fantom Demand for DeFi May Return

Fantom was among the DeFi leaders during the past bull cycle, reaching total value locked above $7B, and close to $10B based on some reports. Currently, the Fantom platform holds only a fraction of that TVL, and may have to rebuild from the ground up. 

As a sign of revival, Aggregators Volume is picking up, as tracked by DeFi Llama. 

Additionally, some of the top Fantom decentralized exchanges (DEX) have grown their volumes in the past month. WigoSwap is one of the growth leaders, increasing its trading by nearly 75%. But most Fantom DEX are still accruing liquidity, with less than $20M locked in most cases.

Fantom also carries the popular Guru Network DAO, which picked up in Q1, 2024. But SpookySwap remains the most visited and the most liquid app on the Fantom network.

Also read Fantom Price Prediction 2024-2033: Will FTM Investors Waver in Crypto Winter?

Activity on the Fantom network expanded as DEX got a boost from the trading of new meme tokens. Fantom was one of the networks to go through a boom of newly issued tokens, each trying to build liquidity pairs quickly. 

Also read The Rise of Memecoins on Fantom: The Age of the New Leadership Arrives.

The rise of meme coins also achieved extremely fast volume growth, with more than 6X growth between February and March. Based on recent reports, Fantom seems to be emerging successfully from the previous years of “crypto winter”.

FTM Tries to Recover $1 Level

FTM rallied in the past few days, as more talk of the Sonic upgrade added to the bullish moods. The token traded at $0.81, while volumes grew close to  $500M in 24 hours. FTM trading reached a 12-month peak in March, when the token went above $1.11.

The current growth puts FTM within a reasonable distance to its all-time high. Even during the peak bull market, FTM only conquered the $3 level. Compared to Solana, FTM offers a lower entry point for new users seeking a fast ecosystem for meme tokens, NFT or DeFi.

The rise of Fantom also gets a boost from the newly popular Equalizer project, the third- largest DEX on the platform. 

EQUAL went vertical recently, to trade at $15.20, and has attempted to recover its all-time high above $21. 

For FTM, traders see the recent price moves as the end of accumulation. FTM also retested its recent lows and bounced. From this stage onward, some traders expect the beginning of a larger rally. 

Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Beeva.