Quick Guide to Fantom Blockchain Network
Fantom is a Proof-of-stake (POS), smart contract blockchain network that is designed to be fast, scalable, and secured. It is functionally similar to Ethereum. And because it is Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible, smart contracts that runs on Ethereum works on Fantom too.
It also has a few advantages compared to Ethereum:
Low gas fee - Fantom's gas fees are mostly negligible (typically < $0.01 for simple transactions), in stark contrast to Ethereum. This means no gas war for NFT mints
Lower barrier to entry - Because of its low network fees, the barrier to entry for first time blockchain users or NFT minters is low
Exceptional transaction speed - Fantom is capable of handling 300,000 transactions/s on paper, compared to Ethereum, with ~13 transactions/s
If you want a deep-dive on Fantom, Coin Bureau has very good videos discussing about Fantom, its tokenomics and potential: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-8w6NIQalA
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) Compatibility
You can think of EVM as the operating system (OS) that can run smart contracts, much like we can use Windows to run Microsoft Word for example.
Fantom is fully EVM compatible, this means that whatever smart contracts created for Ethereum, can run on Fantom as well.
Because of this, if you have used the Ethereum network before, the experience of using Fantom will be exactly the same. You will be using Metamask to interact with Fantom, using the same wallet address you used for Ethereum.
Adding Fantom Network to Metamask
To start using Fantom, you first need to add the network to your Metamask. Fret not! It is a really easy process!
You can refer to the official Fantom guide to add Fantom to your Metamask. If you would like to see a step-by-step, here's a screencast to help you: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vu_a7n4pxEw-o1i2aw1XlrSlpw39THKK/view?usp=sharing
Now you are ready to use Fantom! But before that, you will need to load up some FTM into your Metamask wallet.
How to Get FTM
FTM is the native coin used on the Fantom network for transactions and gas fees, much like ether is the native coin on Ethereum.
Via Centralised Exchanges (CEX)
You can see https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/fantom/markets/ for all the CEX you can use to trade FTM. Most major exchanges supports Fantom.
When you withdraw Fantom from an exchange to your Metamask wallet, make sure to select the network as Fantom network instead of Ethereum network! That is because FTM also exists as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. If you accidentally use the Ethereum network to withdraw FTM, it will cost you high gas fee, and when you need to bridge the FTMs over to Fantom network, you'll need to pay gas again.
See here for a sample of a typical CEX withdrawal page (Okex in screenshot):
To highlight again, make sure to select the network as Fantom (like in screenshot), instead of Ethereum, to avoid high gas fee.
Via Stablecoins on Ethereum
If you hold stablecoins (USDC) on Ethereum, you can also very easily bridge your stablecoins on Ethereum to Fantom using SpookySwap's bridge, the Uniswap of Fantom and the leading Decentralised Exchange (DEX) on Fantom.
See here for detailed guide: https://docs.spookyswap.finance/links/bridge-to-fantom-opera
Besides USDC, the bridge also supports a limited set of other tokens which can be exchanged from Ethereum to the Fantom network.
If you face any challenges, or is uncertain, feel free to contact us on Discord, we will be able to guide you.
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