• Fantom Foundation rebranded to Sonic Labs in May as part of an overhaul aimed at addressing network issues and improving user experience
• The hype around Fantom is centered on the upcoming launch of its upgraded layer-1 chain, Sonic.

The majority of cryptocurrencies were trading in the green on the 22nd of August, notwithstanding a slight retreat from late Wednesday’s prices.

Fantom [FTM] has stood out among top gainers alongside Polygon [MATIC], both registering decent gains.

Per AMBCrypto’s look at TradingView, FTM printed a 15.64% daily green candle on the 21st of August and was on course to complete a minor green candle.

Outside the market, Fantom has seen growing interest and user engagement owing to the ongoing rebranding that will eventually culminate in the network transitioning to a new identity.

In May, the Fantom Foundation introduced the Sonic Foundation and Sonic Labs as the new entities associated with a new high-throughput chain, Sonic Network.

Sonic network narrative

Sonic Network will operate as a high-speed layer-1 chain with a native layer-2 bridge connected to Ethereum [ETH], thus unlocking more liquidity.

The launch of Sonic is expected to deliver a new phase of growth for the ecosystem, thanks to the network’s greater scalability and faster transaction speeds.

Sonic Labs claims the new chain can process over 10,000 transactions per second (TPS), a notable improvement from Opera network’s 2000 TPS.

Looking into the network’s milestones

This week, Sonic Labs launched the Sonic Boom bounty program on the 20th of August to incentivize developer activity.

The program, which represents the first major initiative of Sonic’s airdrop, runs until the 4th of November and will reward developers building on the chain with Sonic Gems.

Earlier this month, Sonic Labs announced that DeFi veteran Andre Cronje had taken up the Chief Technology Officer role.

Cronje will steer the development of Sonic, specifically the native bridging technology, Sonic Gateway.

The bridge aims to enhance interoperability across blockchain ecosystems and features a failsafe, enabling users to recover their funds on the chain.

Last month, Sonic Labs introduced a gas-free trading program in partnership with Rabby, a wallet for Ethereum and all EVM chains.

The program commenced on the 22nd of July and will continue until the 20th of October or if allocated funds are exhausted.

Fantom [FTM]: Technical analysis

FTM has charted nearly 25% gains in the last seven days. This price uptick has been accompanied by significant daily trading volumes resulting from increased market engagement.

CoinMarketCap’s data showed that FTM’s 24-hour trading volume surpassed $200 million on several instances on the 21st of August.

Sonic’s upcoming mainnet launch could rekindle on-chain activity and potentially propel prices, positioning FTM as a strong buy.

FTM has already seen growing interest in the lead-up to the rollout of the Sonic blockchain later this year.

Technical indicators suggested that FTM’s near-term and long-term prospects were strong. At press time, FTM was trading between the 50- and 100-day simple moving averages (SMA).

The $0.54 mark, which coincides with the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA), poses as the next price target for bulls. Flipping resistance at this level would bring $0.68 and May’s high of $0.97 in sight.

Read Fantom’s [FTM] Price Prediction 2024-25

Though Fantom [FTM] has rebounded more than 90% from its August 5 lows of $0.24, it still lags behind Bitcoin [BTC] and other major alts in the market in year-to-date returns.

FTM has shrunk 2.40% since the start of this year, under-performing Bitcoin, which was trading 36% higher in the same period.