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Introducing
Fantom Sonic offers unprecedented scalability and storage to developers, and a swift, streamlined experience for users.
With a new virtual machine, improved storage, and optimized consensus, Fantom Sonic offers unprecedented scalability and affordable storage to developers, and a swift, streamlined experience for users.
What is Fantom Sonic?
Supersonic performance
Sonic is the newest iteration of Fantom that uses innovative blockchain technology to scale the network to unprecedented heights.
Throughput
Sonic is anticipated to achieve beyond 2,000 transactions per second.
Finality
Sonic offers one-second finality, ensuring instant irreversible transactions.
Storage
Sonic reduces storage requirements for the network by up to 90%.
Transactions per second
2,044
Time to finality
0.923 s
Average block time
0.41 s
Gas per second
428,491,902
Archive disk size per 100M txs
161.9 Gb
Archive disk size per 100M txs
161.9 Gb
Quorum / validators
15/21
Average gas per transaction
209,939
Validator disk size per 100M txs
60.4 Gb
Sonic technology stack
Fantom Virtual Machine
The Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM) offers superior execution performance compared to the EVM by processing over 65x more transactions per second.
The FVM converts EVM bytecode seamlessly into a new virtual machine format and supports super instructions, optimized bundles of commonly occurring instruction patterns, to reduce execution time.
Lachesis consensus mechanism
Sonic continues to use the Lachesis consensus mechanism, but it has vastly improved the transaction pool for collecting transactions of users.
Carmen database storage
The Carmen database storage uses flat storage as opposed to tree-like structures to simplify data retrieval and offer reductions in storage requirements, e.g. reducing archive node size from above 11 TB to below 1 TB.
Carmen supports live pruning, which allows validators to discard historical data that is no longer needed while remaining online to prevent operational disruptions.
Frequently asked questions
What is Fantom Sonic, and what does it encapsulate?
Fantom Sonic is the name that covers the new Fantom technology stack. Essentially, it is the next iteration of the Fantom network, with no hard fork required for the upgrade. Existing smart contracts, services, and tools on Fantom Opera should be fully compatible with mainnet Fantom Sonic.
The launch of Sonic comprises three main components that scale Fantom to new heights:
- A new virtual machine, the Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), which increases our transaction throughput significantly while maintaining ultra-short finality.
- A new database storage, Carmen, which reduces storage requirements by up to 90%, providing greater cost efficiency for validators and accelerating the Foundation's ability to deploy archive nodes from weeks to approximately 36 hours.
- An optimized Lachesis consensus mechanism, which brings a vastly improved transaction pool.
Fantom Sonic is in its testnet stage at the moment and will roll out as a mainnet to replace Fantom Opera in spring 2024. Currently, Sonic offers two different testnets: the closed testnet aims to showcase the maximum theoretical limits of Sonic, whereas the builders testnet is interactive, allowing any user and developer to experience Sonic directly or deploy dApps.
What about the FVM?
The FVM (Fantom Virtual Machine) is just one component of Sonic and a substantial improvement over the previous Ethereum Virtual Machine implementation.
Most importantly, this new virtual machine allows Fantom validators to execute smart contracts more efficiently.
Does the FVM still run Solidity smart contracts?
Yes. The FVM is fully compatible with the EVM and its programming languages (Solidity, Vyper, etc.), so smart contracts do not need to be changed.
What is Fantom 2.0?
Fantom 2.0 is Fantom Sonic. It is the name that has been used leading up to the announcement of Sonic.
Will it replace Fantom Opera?
Yes. Fantom Opera is the name of the technology stack that Sonic will replace.
What is the difference between the closed and builders testnet?
The Fantom Sonic testnet environment consists of two separate testnets to demonstrate the upgrade before its mainnet release.
The closed testnet is viewable only and aims to showcase the maximum theoretical limits of Sonic, whereas the builders testnet (previously the open testnet) is interactive, allowing any user and developer to experience Sonic directly or deploy dApps.
Will there be a hard fork?
No. This means that existing smart contracts, services, and tools on Fantom Opera should be fully compatible with mainnet Fantom Sonic.
However, there may be even more significant performance gains with further testing that may require a hard fork in the future, but the current plan is not to hard fork Fantom Opera.
Will the community be able to run nodes for the Sonic testnet?
The team is planning on releasing binaries/executables that will enable others to run nodes in the future.
When does the Sonic mainnet release?
The exact timing is to be determined, but we anticipate deploying the mainnet in spring 2024.
When is the Sonic testnet opening to the public?
On Tuesday, October 24, 2023.