1. 21 million LINK flowed out of the Chainlink non-circulating supply contract 3 hours ago, equivalent to approximately US$295 million

The Fantom Foundation posted on social media that the 3rd Sonic governance proposal has been released, which includes ecosystem subsidies, a new token burning mechanism, and innovative programs such as Sonic Spark and Sonic University.It is reported that over the next six years, the Sonic Foundation will allocate a portion of tokens as operating funds for Sonic Labs to manage dApps, BD partnerships, and network growth between existing and new user communities.In addition, if the community decides to control the inflation rate at 1.5% per year over the next six years, 47,625,000 tokens (3,175,000,000 x 1.5%) will be minted each year. If Sonic Labs only uses 5,000,000 tokens that year, the Sonic Foundation will burn the remaining tokens (42,625,000).

1. Base TVL exceeds US$8 billion, setting a new record high

Fantom Foundation announced on X platform that the fUSD exchange website and contract are now online. Users now have one week to exchange USDC.e for fUSD at a 1:1 ratio to unlock their FTM position.

Fantom's native token, FTM, has experienced a surge of over 190% in just four weeks, making it the best-performing non-meme cryptocurrency among the top 100 digital assets by market value. The token's market capitalization has increased to $3.29 billion, making it the 44th largest digital asset in the world. The impending Sonic upgrade for Fantom's layer 1 blockchain, which is expected to increase transaction processing speeds, may have contributed to the rise in investor interest. Meanwhile, Bitcoin has tested $66,000 during Asian trading hours and is expected to face more volatility in the near future.

Fantom (FTM), launched in 2018, is a Layer-1 protocol focused on fast and cost-efficient transaction execution. Fantom became a DeFi hub with development help from Andre Cronje. As a result, Fantom’s network hosts dozens of DeFi protocols, including Equalizer Finance, Beethoven X, and SpookySwap. In addition to DeFi, Fantom also supports NFTs and games, like the new Estfor Kingdom.

Andre Cronje, a director of the Fantom Foundation, solicited community opinions on social media regarding four unreleased DeFi prototype projects, including "Protection markets, LevX, fx*swap, On-chain Bureau". Andre Cronje asked the community for their opinions on whether all suspended projects should be continued to be released, whether all of their code should continue to be released as open source (there are many protocols running on different chains without attribution), and whether they should be specifically released on the Fantom chain. If they choose to open source, should the license be restricted to the Fantom chain?

Developers of Fantom (FTM) have reduced the staking requirement for running a self-staking node on the network by 90%. The move is aimed at improving network security by making it more distributed and challenging for malicious actors to launch an attack. Validators on Fantom confirm transactions on their own and bundle them to share with other validators, unlike on Ethereum where all validators confirm the same transactions. The cost of running a validator node on Fantom has been reduced to 50,000 FTM, currently worth just under $20,000 at current prices.

The Fantom Foundation announced on social media that the self-staking requirement for validators has been reduced from 500,000 FTM to 50,000 FTM, effective immediately. Additionally, FTM lost due to early unlocking will now be sent to the SFC Treasury to obtain ecosystem funds.

On December 4th, the Fantom Foundation announced the launch of the Sonic Labs accelerator program, aimed at promoting innovation within Fantom's new Sonic technology stack and providing resources and support for the next generation of web3 entrepreneurs.<br>The program will select up to five projects, providing each project with funding support of 1 million FTM (approximately $294,000 USD), as well as technical support, joint marketing, and mentorship.<br>The Fantom Foundation encourages eligible projects to apply, and developers can begin building projects on Sonic starting on December 15th. These projects will be launched in the spring of 2024 with the Fantom Sonic mainnet.<br>The Sonic Labs program is open to all developers building new applications on Fantom technology, including GameFi, DeFi, and more. Judging criteria for the competition include vision, utilization of Sonic technology, target user group, uniqueness, positive impact on the Fantom network and users, and brand. The application deadline is February 6th, 2024.<br>