AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly teamed up with Fantom and Quantum Fintech Group for the 2021 Formula One season. Gasly was previously sponsored by Red Bull and is entering his fourth F1 season as AlphaTauri’s all-time top point scorer after securing two podium finishes, including a maiden win at Monza in 2020. Gasly is scheduled to race at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix 2021 in Italy on April 16th to 18th.
On Twitter Gasly stated, “Very happy to be part of the Fantom Foundation adventure together with the Quantum FinTech Group. Fantom is the world's first smart contract platform ready for mass adoption, allowing instant transactions and nearly zero cost.”
Pierre Gasly announces sponsorship with Fantom.
Fantom blockchain is a layer-1 platform built on an aBFT consensus protocol, called ‘lachesis.’ The Fantom Foundation website states that Fantom’s “speed, low transaction costs, and high throughput make Fantom ideal for DeFi applications as well as real world uses.” In February, Fantom has yielded over 1500% returns for its investors. Quantum Fintech is a crypto hedge fund based in Abu Dhabi, led by Harry Yeh, a supporter of the Fantom Foundation, who personally led the sponsorship efforts.
“In 2017, I looked at technologies that could overcome the limitations of earlier blockchain platforms, specifically scalability issues that would hinder a wider adoption. I identified in Fantom, that features a revolutionary aBFT consensus fully compatible with Ethereum, an ideal candidate for a blockchain platform that could scale and serve millions of users with almost instant and almost free transactions,” says Stelian Balta of Hyperchain Capital, another early Fantom investor.
The list of Fantom’s investors and supporters seems to keep growing. Most recently, Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research invested $35 million into the project, followed by a $20 million investment by Block Tower Capital, led by Ari Paul.
Fantom’s technology was originally architected by Andre Cronje, the founder of popular DeFi projects YFI and Keep3r. In fact, some of the smart contract features of Keep3r were migrated over to Fantom, significantly cutting down transaction costs.
In what is perhaps one of the most rapid partnership campaigns in the history of blockchain, in the last two months Fantom has announced partnerships with Keep3r, Cover, Cream, Frax, Sushiswap, Yearn, FTX, Solana, Serum, Curve and Graph Protocol. Fantom claims to offer these projects seamless cross-chain ecosystem integration with increased through-put and transaction speed.
The Gasly sponsorship is one of several “crypto to celebrity” collaborations over the last year. Just last week Dapper Labs, the company behind the popular NBA Top Shot digital collectibles platform, said it closed a $305 million funding round which included from Michael Jordan and Will Smith, while Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan have become active participants NFT space.
