Despite the recent market slump, the FOAN — Fantom, Harmony, Cosmos and NEAR Protocol — group of alternate layer-1 blockchains have outperformed its peers.
Over the last year, Ethereum has struggled with almost perpetual congestion and high fees, which have made the blockchain all but unusable for smaller transactions.
As a result, a number of alternate smart contract platforms have begun muscling in on its territory; including the likes of Binance Smart Chain, Solana and Terra — each of which has gone from strength to strength in recent months as they grow their market share.
But while heavyweights like these have captured most of the attention lately, several other smart contract platforms have been putting in quite the performance behind the scenes, and have been gathering significant momentum.
Widely known as the “FOAN trade”, a quartet of blockchains comprised of Fantom, Harmony, Cosmos and NEAR Protocol have seen a dramatic uptick in their on-chain activity, wallet counts, DApp ecosystems and total value locked (TVL) in recent months. Each of these platforms has outpaced (in percentage terms) Ethereum in at least one of these key metrics.
Because of this, many investors now expect that one or more of these platforms will eventually go on to become a major Ethereum competitor.
And according to recent data, this rampant growth appears to be continuing into 2022. As per the latest daily transaction figures, three of the four assets (Harmony, Fantom, and NEAR) have seen a gradual uptick in on-chain activity in January 2022.
But more than this, all four platforms have seen a significant uptick in the TVL this year (as per data from Defi Llama) — here are the figures as they stand:
- Fantom TVL up 54% YTD. This now sits at $7.57 billion, of which more than half is associated with the Multichain DApp.
- Harmony TVL up 49% YTD. This now sits at $1.23 billion, of which more than 60% is associated with the Play-to-Earn game DeFi Kingdoms.
- Cosmos TVL up 21% YTD. This now sits at $9.2 million, all of which is associated with StaFi.
- NEAR TVL up 26% YTD. This now sits at $162.8 million, 64% of which is associated with Ref finance.
That said, while all FOAN assets have seen their TVL grow, they all have a rather limited DApp ecosystem, and have a single massively successful DApp that dominates the TVL. As their product landscapes grow, the TVL may continue to grow, but be spread across a larger DApp roster.
Important warning: Multichain recently announced that a critical vulnerability has been found in its older router contract. If you have ever approved WETH, PERI, OMT, WBNB, MATIC, or AVAX on the platform, then this may concern you. See the full details of the issue here along with information on how to revoke any necessary permissions.
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