AC Open Letter to the Foundation: 11 Directions for Fantom in 2023
Original title: "Letter to Fantom Foundation team"
Author: Andre Cronje
Original compilation: Kate, MarsBit News
We shared a letter with the Fantom Foundation team a few days ago, as a distributed foundation, it is sometimes difficult to keep everyone on the same page. Working in silos or in small teams often allows us to create our own vision and mission statement. This letter reaffirms our goals and priorities for 2023, so I wanted to share it here as well.
Hello everyone,
The past few years can be described as "turbulent". There are blissful highs and terrifying lows. During this time, we have had victories and we have had losses. At the same time, we are consistent: our technology is consistent, our deliverables are consistent, and our growth is consistent. Winning comes when we put in the necessary work and that has never changed. Bull markets are when the work we do during bear markets pays off. The ones who persevere, keep building, keep growing, keep improving – they are the ones who reap the rewards of the bull market. We were born in a bear market. This is an era we have grown accustomed to, and an era for which we are well suited.
Our mission is to deliver the highest throughput blockchain, providing a single secure settlement layer for all decentralized activities. This is a very difficult task and we cannot take shortcuts. All decentralized applications should be able to benefit from the same base layer security.
The role of our foundation is not to pick a vertical - it's to enable a base layer that can facilitate all verticals. We should not focus on user verticals. Our focus needs to be on the developer vertical: improving tooling, integrations, ease of use, developer user experience, etc. We shouldn't be distracted by new narratives, Defi, NFT, gamefi, trading platforms, etc.
Our number one goal over the next 12 months is to create an environment for dApp developers to build sustainable businesses while differentiating us from other layer 1 solutions.
The core focus of our program is to:
Gas monetization - this allows dApps to be given a revenue share based on gas used - similar to how youtube/twitch creators earn, this will bring long-term sustainable revenue to strong dApps teams.
Gas subsidy - allows dApps to interact without having to pay Gas fees in the wallet itself, smoother boarding, and users do not need to own or understand FTM.
Account abstraction - we will no longer distinguish between contract accounts and EOA accounts, everything will become a contract. Contracts can initiate transactions and pay Gas fees. "EOA" is just an authorization that can instruct the contract (wallet) to initiate an action. This means that "EOA" can become email addresses and passwords, social authentication, face recognition, etc., further enabling social recovery and an overall better dApp experience.
Economic abstraction of gas fees - allows the use of tokens other than FTM to pay fees, depending on the account abstraction.
New middleware (Fantom virtual machine, new storage mechanism) - As most of you are familiar with, this is our biggest focus. The EVM (i.e. smart contract processing) is still our main bottleneck and being able to fix this will allow us to hit the physical limits of our hardware.
Performance Engineering - We will use tools developed by Bernhard's team and others to continuously optimize until we reach the hardware throughput limit (PebbleDB, flat storage, etc.).
Documentation and Training - We've been focusing on teams that are already familiar with Solidity. We will be updating our documentation and training for new builders and non-blockchain-native developers.
Our goal is to scale the base layer, making it easier for builders to build simpler dApps and activate users, while providing them with a sustainable (non-token-based) business model.
On the financial side: As publicly communicated, given the current economic environment, especially compared to 2018, we are in a very sustainable and healthy position. This is the last threat to our existence that we need not worry too much about.
About funding: We are focused on funding and funding opportunities for dApp teams that can survive without us. These are demonstrated by Gitcoin integration and our ecosystem fund. We can still provide discretionary funding. However, any funding we provide will need to focus on the chain's potential future revenue (i.e. network transaction fees).
On marketing: We know this has historically been a difficult area for us. We are actively looking for potential customers and will have good news late Q1/early Q2 2023.
Regarding business development: This has proven to be challenging for our small team. We are actively looking for leads and will have good news in late Q1/early Q2 2023.
On a personal note (from Andre): I have been formally nominated and accepted to be a member of the Board of Directors of Fantom Foundation Ltd and Fantom Operations Ltd.
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