The Fantom Foundation, the organization responsible for the decentralized network known as Fantom, recently made an announcement about the establishment of a new foundation that will support the launch of their upcoming Sonic chain.
On May 23, Michael Kong, the CEO of the Fantom Foundation, shared the news about the new foundation on the blog of the blockchain network. In his blog post, Kong stated that the Sonic Foundation will have the responsibility of overseeing the governance of Sonic, managing the network’s treasury, forming partnerships, and developing the DApp ecosystem.
As per Kong and the Fantom development team, Sonic will consist of a new layer-1 solution along with a built-in layer 2 that will connect the EVM-compatible network directly to the Ethereum network.
Through the architecture of the Sonic Chain, users of the future Sonic network will have access to Ethereum’s extensive ecosystem of decentralized applications, liquidity providers, and community.
Originally launched in 2019, Fantom offers a unique consensus model called Lachesis, which distinguishes itself from traditional blockchain networks by utilizing directed acyclic graphs and asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerance (aBFT).
A visual representation illustrating the distinction between a traditional blockchain and a directed acyclic graph can be found in the image provided by the Central Blockchain Council of America and Fantom Foundation.
Validators on the Fantom network do not need to work on the most recent block, as is the case with Bitcoin or Ethereum. Instead, they independently validate transactions and blocks, which are referred to as “event blocks.”
These event blocks are then disseminated to other nodes in a non-linear manner to achieve consensus, without depending on the sequential order of blocks being validated.
Once a majority of the nodes agree on the content of the event block, it is added to Fantom’s main chain as a root event block. Fantom’s main chain functions as an actual blockchain, while the consensus mechanism between nodes is a directed acyclic graph that enables constant asynchronous communication among all validator nodes.
The Fantom Foundation explained that this utilization of asynchronous messaging between nodes is what enables Fantom to achieve a finality time of 1-2 seconds per block.