Unveiling Forta’s FORT Token

An Incentivized Network to Monitor and Protect All Transactions and Assets in Web3

Forta is a real-time detection network for security & operational monitoring of blockchain activity. As part of its mission to monitor all transactions and protect all assets in Web3, Forta is unveiling the FORT Token: an incentive structure to secure its monitoring network, allowing Forta to grow and secure the Web3 ecosystem as a whole. FORT Token is not live yet.

Why Web3 needs Forta

As the Web3 economy grows in value and complexity, security has become increasingly critical. More than $1 billion was lost in the first quarter of 2022 due to hacks and exploits, some of which have only been discovered several days after the attack happened. The need for real-time security and operational monitoring has become clear, allowing protocols and investors to react quickly to neutralize threats and prevent or minimize loss of funds. 

However, the rapid speed at which the Web3 industry develops makes it hard for a centralized entity to watch it all. That’s where Forta comes in.

Forta is setting the standard for real-time detection in Web3

As a decentralized monitoring network, Forta detects threats and anomalies on DeFi, NFT, governance, bridges and other Web3 systems in real-time. Given timely and relevant alerts about the security and health of owned or dependent systems, protocols and investors can react quickly to neutralize threats and prevent or minimize loss of funds. To learn more about how Forta works, please refer to the docs.

The first version of Forta was created in Q1 2021 and incubated by OpenZeppelin, the premier Web3 cybersecurity technology and services company. After announcing a successful round from world-class backers including a16z, Blockchain Capital, Placeholder, and Coinbase Ventures in July 2021, the Forta App and Explorer were made public and available for anyone in the world to use. In the beginning of 2022, governance over Forta was endowed to the Forta Foundation, an independent, non-profit organization that will facilitate Network governance by Forta’s community members.

Since then, Forta has seen major adoption and growth from leading organizations and developers in the Web3 ecosystem. By April 2022:

- $45 billion in TVL monitored by Forta. Leading projects such as Lido, Polygon, Instadapp, Compound, Liquity, Alpaca Finance, UMA, and Poly Network are currently using Forta to monitor the security and health of their systems across major chains (Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, Avalanche, Optimism, Arbitrum, and Fantom)

- 1000+ Developers building Detection Bots (i.e. code scripts to detect specific conditions or events). Useful Detection Bots are being added to the network daily, including Bots monitoring contracts funded by Tornado Cash withdrawals, instances of NFT sleepminting, protocol governance activity, protocol multisig activity, cross-chain bridge deposits and withdrawals, large flash loans and swaps and a pair of Detection Bots that secure the OpenZeppelin smart contracts library.

- 50+ active nodes in the Forta network. Growing network of independent node operators around the world including Foundry, Sigma Prime, Node Capital and Mixbytes, who are using public Forta software.

- 5 top Web3 professional services companies - Ernst & Young, OpenZeppelin, Arbitrary Execution, Limechain, and Nethermind - actively working with projects to implement Forta as part of their security & operational workflow

- 19,000+ active community members in Discord, having relevant conversations taking place across a diverse array of languages and time zones. 

- $250k+ in community grants issued by leading DeFi projects such as Compound, Aave, UMA, Gnosis, Iron Bank, and Gamma to fund development of bespoke Detection Bots. These Detection Bots suites are now monitoring and protecting the value that flows through their platforms.

Why Forta needs the FORT Token (FORT): challenges of running a decentralized network

Until now, the Network has been operating without any cryptoeconomic incentives to drive the behavior of its participants. This brought a set of challenges to ensure the integrity and reliability of the Forta permissionless network. The FORT token addresses these challenges: 

1) Alert Integrity. Protocols and investors rely on Forta’s alerts to monitor and secure their owned or dependent projects. Therefore, the accuracy and integrity of the alert broadcast by the network of nodes is critical. Today, there’s no mechanism to ensure alert integrity. 

2) Network Reliability. Anyone can deploy and run Detection Bots on the Forta Network at virtually no cost. This led to multiple fake or low quality detection bots being deployed to the Network, which take up Network capacity and reduce the nodes’ uptime and reliability. Today, there’s no mechanism to avoid spam attacks alike, and differentiate high-signal vs low-value Detection Bots.

The FORT token is now ready to solve these challenges:

1) Node Runner Staking. Node runners must deposit FORT Tokens to provide economic security for the work they are performing, since the staked FORT can be slashed if a node fails to execute their assigned work or performs their work maliciously. Once FORT is staked, it may only be withdrawn subject to a thawing period, which provides ample opportunity for verification and dispute resolution. Active node operators may earn rewards in FORT from the Network if they maintain the minimum stake and emit alerts and execute their assigned work correctly.

2) Detection Bot Signaling. Developers may stake FORT Tokens on Detection Bots, signaling Detection Bot quality to the Network and also providing a Sybil resistance mechanism. Having fake or low quality Detection Bots on the Network makes it harder to find the best detection offerings. Detection Bots with higher signal will also be afforded additional node resources to increase security, reliability, and performance.

The FORT token will be an ERC-20 token running on the Ethereum network. In the future, community governance over the Forta Network is intended to be moved on-chain, and the FORT Token can also be used by the community to autonomously govern the Network. While Forta is continuing to develop, including further evolution of community governance, it is crucial to maintain stability for Forta users that are relying on the Network’s real-time monitoring. For that reason, Forta intends to decentralize governance over the Network progressively, beginning with a period of Council governance where community members can become educated and grow into their governance responsibilities. 

Next step: FORT Token Incentives and the Fortification Phase

In the coming days, the Forta Foundation will announce the start of the Fortification Phase where anyone in the Forta community may apply to run a scan node and participate in testing the decentralized Forta Network using the FORT token, subject to certain eligibility criteria. 

To join the exclusive waitlist and receive updates about the Fortification Phase, add your email to the subscription form at forta.org.

While the Forta Network will be fully functional and the tokens will have immediate utility, all FORT tokens distributed during the Fortification Phase will be subject to technological transfer restrictions that only permit the token to be used within the Forta Network.