Open Letter from Andre Cronje to the Foundation: 11 Directions for Fantom in 2023

Original Title: 《Letter to Fantom Foundation team》

Author: Andre Cronje

Compiled by: Kate, MarsBit News

A few days ago, we shared a letter with the Fantom Foundation team. As a distributed foundation, it can sometimes be challenging to keep everyone aligned. Working in isolation or in small teams often leads us to create our own visions and mission statements. This letter reaffirms our goals and priorities for 2023, and I would like to share it here as well.

Hello everyone,

The past few years can be described as "tumultuous." There have been happy highs and terrifying lows. During this time, we have experienced victories and failures. Yet, we have remained consistent: our technology is consistent, our deliverables are consistent, and our growth is consistent. When we put in the necessary work, victories will come, and that has never changed. Bull markets are when the work we did during bear markets pays off. Those who persist, build continuously, grow, and improve—these are the ones who reap the rewards of bull markets. We were born in a bear market. It is an era we have become accustomed to, and it is one we are very well suited for.

Our mission is to provide the highest throughput blockchain, offering a single secure settlement layer for all decentralized activities. This is a daunting task, and we cannot take shortcuts. All decentralized applications should be able to benefit from the same foundational layer of security.

The role of our foundation is not to choose a vertical business—but to enable a foundational layer that can facilitate all vertical businesses. We should not focus on user verticals. Our emphasis needs to be on developer verticals: improving tools, integrations, usability, developer user experience, and so on. We should not be distracted by new narratives, such as DeFi, NFTs, GameFi, trading platforms, etc.

Our top priority for the next 12 months is to create an environment for dApp developers to build sustainable businesses while distinguishing ourselves from other layer one solutions.

The core focus of our plans is:

Gas Monetization—this allows dApps to provide revenue sharing based on the Gas used—similar to the income of YouTube/Twitch creators, which will bring long-term sustainable income to strong dApp teams.

Gas Subsidies—allowing dApps to interact without the wallet itself paying Gas fees, providing a smoother onboarding experience, where users do not need to own or understand FTM.

Account Abstraction—we will no longer differentiate between contract accounts and EOA accounts; everything will become a contract. Contracts can initiate transactions and pay Gas fees. "EOA" is merely an authorization that can instruct the contract (wallet) to take action. This means "EOA" can become an email address and password, social authentication, facial recognition, etc., further enabling social recovery and an overall better dApp experience.

Economic Abstraction of Gas Fees—allowing fees to be paid with tokens other than FTM, depending on account abstraction.

New Middleware (Fantom Virtual Machine, new storage mechanisms)—as most are familiar, this is our biggest focus. EVM (i.e., smart contract processing) remains our primary bottleneck, and resolving this issue will enable us to reach the physical limits of hardware.

Performance Engineering—we will continuously optimize using tools developed by the Bernhard team and others until we reach the hardware throughput limits (PebbleDB, flat storage, etc.).

Documentation and Training—we have been focused on teams already familiar with Solidity. We will update our documentation and training for new builders and non-blockchain native developers.

Our goal is foundational layer expansion, making it easier for builders to create simpler dApps and activate users while providing them with sustainable (non-token-based) business models.

On the financial side: As publicly communicated, given the current economic environment, especially compared to 2018, we are in a very sustainable and healthy state. This is the last threat to our survival, and we do not need to worry too much.

Regarding funding: We focus on providing funding and grant opportunities for dApp teams that can survive without us. These are all showcased by Gitcoin integration and our ecosystem fund. We can still provide discretionary funding. However, any funding we provide needs to focus on the potential future revenue of the chain (i.e., network transaction fees).

Regarding marketing: We know this has historically been a challenging area for us. We are actively seeking potential clients and will have good news to share by the end of Q1 2023 / early Q2.

Regarding business development: This has proven to be challenging for our small team. We are actively looking for leads and will have good news to share by the end of Q1 2023 / early Q2.

Personally (from Andre Cronje): I have been formally nominated and accepted a position on the board of Fantom Foundation Ltd and Fantom Operations Ltd.

Wishing everyone a wonderful end to 2022. We are very excited and optimistic about Fantom in 2023. We believe that as we enter 2023, we are positioned better than ever before, and we fully plan to actively leverage our strengths during this time.