The Fantom Foundation has officially reduced the validator self-staking requirement on its layer-1 blockchain, Fantom, by 90%, following a governance vote over six months ago. As of a recent announcement on X , the staking threshold for Fantom (FTM) has been decreased to 50,000 FTM, equivalent to $19,500 as of this time. It is worth noting that three months ago, the official hot wallet of Fantom was indeed compromised , resulting in a loss of $550,000, which represented less than 1% of the overall funds. Safety Is Key Fantom emphasized that this adjustment aims to enhance overall security and increase accessibility for running a validator. A higher number of validators allegedly makes it more challenging for potential malicious attacks, as validators operate by bundling and sharing transactions. Finality is achieved when at least two-thirds of network validators reach a consensus. The team also anticipates that an increase in validators will result in faster processing of submitted transactions. They assured users that the growth in the validator count will not negatively impact overall network performance, provided the new validators run on quality hardware. Competition Is Heating Up Addressing potential security concerns, Fantom clarified that lower staking requirements do not pose a risk, as transaction confirmation power is proportional to the corresponding staking amount, not the number of validators it operates. Fantom had been proposing a reduction in the minimum FTM required to run a node since at least February 2022. Right now, Fantom currently boasts 58 validators securing its network. In comparison, Ethereum, the leading layer 1 smart contract platform, has over 1.1 million validators. Other platforms like Cardano, Solana, and Avalanche hosted 2,589, 1,876, and 1,119 validators, respectively, according to a June 2023 report citing Messari data.
