September 13th What do we know about Phantom’s sonic migration?
Education, Tokens
Fantom’s Sonic upgrade will significantly improve network performance by introducing a new Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), an optimized Lachesis consensus mechanism, and Carmen database storage. With this upgrade, Fantom will be able to process over 2,000 transactions per second (TPS) with a final time of approximately 1 second, a significant improvement from the current 30 TPS. Sonic will also reduce storage requirements by up to 90%, making node operation more cost-effective and accessible. Fully compatible with existing Ethereum tools and contracts, Sonic is poised to support a wide range of high-frequency decentralized applications (DApps) without compromising security or decentralization.
Fantom’s Sonic Migration Could Be the Next Step in Next-Generation DeFi
Fantom’s upcoming Sonic upgrade represents a major leap forward in network performance and capabilities. Unlike the current Opera version, Sonic introduces new technical improvements designed to address limitations in transaction speed, finality, and storage efficiency. Sonic essentially replaces Opera’s underlying framework with a new Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), an optimized Lachesis consensus mechanism, and Carmen database storage, aiming to achieve over 2,000 transactions per second (TPS) with an average finality of about 1 second. This represents a significant improvement over Opera, which is limited to 30 TPS in performance and has slow finality. Sonic also significantly reduces storage requirements, making it cheaper and more efficient for validators to run nodes.
One of the notable features of the Sonic upgrade is the new FVM. FVM replaces the previous Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) implementation, providing higher execution performance and improved smart contract processing. These improvements enable faster transaction execution by bundling common instructions into “super instructions” to simplify operations. In addition, FVM supports caching of cryptographic hashes and jump analysis results, further enhancing execution speed and security. In particular, Sonic is fully compatible with existing EVM-based tools and contracts, allowing developers to seamlessly port DApps without changing their codebase.
Another key component of the Sonic upgrade is the Carmen database, which significantly reduces the storage burden on the network. Unlike the traditional offline pruning approach, Carmen introduces live pruning, allowing validators to continuously prune unnecessary data without going offline. This innovation significantly increases the accessibility for participants to contribute to network security by reducing the disk space requirements for running a node by up to 90%. Validators benefit from smaller, more cost-effective storage requirements while maintaining high performance, further enhancing Fantom’s decentralization and efficiency.
Sonic offers a more scalable, faster, and cost-effective solution than Fantom’s current Opera mainnet. By improving TPS, reducing time to finality, and reducing storage costs, Sonic is expected to support new use cases such as high-frequency DeFi platforms, blockchain games, and real-time oracles. Additionally, seamless compatibility with existing EVM tooling ensures that upgrades will not disrupt development environments, making it an evolutionary rather than revolutionary change for Fantom’s growing ecosystem. With the mainnet launch approaching in November/December 2024, Sonic positions Fantom to better compete with high-throughput blockchains while solving long-standing scalability issues without sacrificing decentralization or security.
How did Fantom Sonic perform on testnet?
Fantom’s Sonic migration demonstrates impressive performance on testnet, demonstrating the next level of blockchain scalability. On the closed testnet, Sonic achieved over 2,000 transactions per second with an average confirmation time of around 1.1 seconds, a 6700% increase in performance as mentioned above. This significantly outperforms the current performance of the Fantom Opera mainnet, which operates at around 30 TPS. The closed testnet focuses on pushing the boundaries of network functionality, simulating real-world scenarios by mixing synthetic transactions including native token transfers, ERC20 token operations, and complex Uniswap trades. The results demonstrate Sonic’s ability to handle significantly higher transaction volumes while maintaining fast finality.
The closed testnet was exposed to a massive synthetic transaction load, processing up to 175 million transactions per day without a hitch. This high throughput is critical for blockchain applications that require near-instant confirmation, such as DeFi, gaming, and high-frequency trading platforms. In particular, the testnet remained stable even under these challenging conditions, with transaction confirmation times consistently remaining around 1.1 seconds. The efficient use of gas and low finality times position Sonic to compete with or outperform traditional financial networks in terms of transaction speed.
Currently, Visa processes about 150 million transactions per day, or about 1,700 TPS. At peak times, Visa’s network can handle up to 65,000 TPS, but typically operates well below this maximum capacity. This makes Visa one of the highest performing payment processing networks in the world. Fantom’s Sonic upgrade positions it to compete with centralized payment processors like Visa, but by leveraging a fully decentralized network and architecture that was simply not possible until now.
Sonic’s open testnet, which allows public interactions, also showed strong performance despite its low transaction throughput of around 130 TPS. This open environment gives developers and users a chance to experience the network’s improved speed and scalability first-hand. While synthetic transactions continue to run in the background, the open testnet provides ample capacity for real user transactions, maintaining a confirmation time of around 0.6 seconds. This responsiveness is critical for user-centric DApps, ensuring smooth and fast interactions without the delays often experienced on other blockchain platforms.
In addition to speed, Sonic has also proven to be efficient in storage and resource usage. The testnet has shown a significant reduction in validator storage requirements, with Sonic reducing node storage requirements by up to 90% compared to the Opera mainnet. This reduction not only lowers the operational costs for node operators, but also makes the network more accessible to new participants, improving the scalability of the network. Overall, the performance metrics of the Sonic testnet highlight its readiness to deliver a scalable, high-speed, and cost-effective blockchain infrastructure when it goes live.
What benefits can Fantom’s Sonic Migration bring to Web3?
Fantom’s Sonic upgrade promises significant benefits to the Web3 ecosystem, particularly in terms of scalability, speed, and cost-effectiveness. Sonic aims to solve one of the most critical challenges in blockchain technology: the ability to process large volumes of transactions without compromising speed or security. For DApps and platforms that rely on frequent, fast transactions, such as DeFi, blockchain-based games, and NFT marketplaces, this improved scalability can significantly improve user experience by reducing latency and preventing network congestion during high-traffic periods.
Another major benefit of the Sonic upgrade is the significant reduction in storage requirements. With up to a 90% reduction in data storage requirements, Fantom network nodes and validators will become much more accessible and affordable. This is crucial for the Web3 project, as lower infrastructure costs make it easier for more participants to run nodes, contributing to a more decentralized and resilient network. This reduction also benefits developers who need to store massive amounts of historical data for their DApps, allowing them to run complex applications without the burden of high storage costs.
Sonic’s improved consensus mechanism, Lachesis, optimizes transaction verification to improve both security and efficiency. This allows the network to process more transactions at faster rates while maintaining the high level of security essential for financial applications and data-sensitive platforms in the Web3 space. By eliminating the need for sharding or additional layer 2 solutions, Sonic achieves incredible performance gains while keeping the network architecture simpler. This will encourage more Web3 developers to build on Fantom, knowing that their applications can scale without having to redesign or adapt to new infrastructure layers.
Sonic’s compatibility with the EVM and its ability to seamlessly run Ethereum-based smart contracts provide a huge advantage for Web3 adoption. This cross-chain compatibility allows developers and users who are already familiar with Ethereum to transition to Fantom without having to learn a new environment or rewrite their code. As Web3 expands across multiple blockchains, this kind of interoperability is essential to allow DApps to integrate across the ecosystem, thereby driving the overall usability and adoption of decentralized technologies.
With the Sonic upgrade, Fantom is now ready to compete directly with existing centralized payment infrastructures like Visa, marking a significant milestone for decentralized blockchain technology. Sonic is in the realm of existing financial networks known for their speed and stability, with the ability to process over 2,000 TPS with sub-second finality. This is a monumental achievement for decentralized blockchains, bringing blockchain performance closer to real-time payment systems, allowing applications like DeFi, Web3 payments, and DApps to scale without the latency or congestion issues that have plagued decentralized networks in the past. Fantom combines improved transaction speed and cost efficiency with the security and transparency of a blockchain that can challenge the dominance of centralized payment giants, heralding a new era of blockchain-based financial infrastructure.