What is FTM used for?
Securing the network
The main utility of the FTM token on Fantom is to secure the network via a Proof-of-Stake system.
To participate, validator nodes need to hold a minimum of 3,175,000 FTM, and stakers need to lock up their FTM. In return for the service, both the nodes and the stakers are rewarded with epoch rewards and fees.
Besides preventing centralization, the system is also environmentally friendly.
Payments
The FTM token is ideal for sending and receiving payments thanks to the Fantom network’s high-throughput, fast finality, and low fees.
On Fantom, money transfers take around 1 second and cost about $0.0000001. Yep, that’s a lot of leading zeros 😉
On-chain governance
FTM is needed for on-chain governance. Because Fantom is a fully permissionless and leaderless decentralized ecosystem, any decision regarding the network is carried out by on-chain governance. With governance, stakers can propose and vote for changes and improvements. FTM is the governance token required to participate in the voting process.
Network fees
FTM is used for network fees, such as transaction fees and fees to deploy smart contracts or to create new networks.
Without a minimum barrier, the network would be an easy target for spam, ultimately hampering the performance and filling the ledger with useless information.
On Fantom, fees are very cheap but sufficient to make it extremely expensive for a malicious actor to carry out an attack.
The FTM supply
The total supply is 3.175 billion FTM. 2.1 billion are currently in circulation while the remainder is reserved for staking rewards. If the rewards stay at the current levels (depending on governance decisions), it will take more than two years to distribute all the rewards and to reach a full circulation of the total supply.
The total supply is distributed over different tokens standards to ensure easier trading. All the tokens taken together will never exceed the total cap of 3.175 billion FTM.
At the moment, FTM is available as native mainnet token, as ERC-20 token, and as BEP-2 token.
How to buy FTM? How to store FTM?
You can buy FTM on all major cryptocurrency exchanges. The exchange with the most volume and lowest slippage is Binance. You can buy FTM using BTC, ETH, USDT, or BNB.
See this list to learn what other exchanges you can use to purchase FTM.
We discourage storing your FTM on exchanges due to the custodial risks. You would also miss out on staking rewards. Staking is easy and you can do it directly from Fantom fWallet.