Introduction
Have you ever felt like you’re walking through a minefield when trying to invest in crypto? Or have you been a firsthand victim of a Pump & Dump or Rug Pull promising a 100x return?
I understand perfectly, I’ve been there too. Attracted by the apparent opportunities within this sector, only to discover that it’s not easy to unearth “gems” that can truly survive in this industry and, above all, that have a solid structure.
Well, today I present to you Forta Network. A decentralized network that allows real-time monitoring of anomalies within blockchain ecosystems, in which you have or want to invest time and money. This project caught the attention of major VCs, including Coinbase Ventures, a16z, and Blockchain Capital, which funded it with an investment of 23 million dollars in 2021.
In short, Forta allows you to:
Detect threats and anomalies in real-time
Monitor institutional operators (whale, project founders, VC)
Participate in a community of cybersecurity researchers
Privately monitor for those users who prefer it
The protocol supports L1 and L2 like Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, BNB Chain, Fantom, Arbitrum, and Optimism.
Essentially, it’s like having a personal bodyguard and manager to ensure everything runs smoothly according to your set parameters. All of this is accompanied by a community of people ready to help you, to make the crypto industry safer and more accessible.
What is Forta
Forta is a decentralized network that bases its existence on cybersecurity in the crypto industry, the protocol offers 3 services:
Attack Detector, to prevent various types of attacks
Network Explorer, to monitor token transactions or interactions between wallets
Scam Detector, designed to provide threat intelligence for Web3 wallets, dashboard tools, and security and compliance solutions
Attack Detector Bot
The Attack Detector Bot is an intelligent tool designed to keep a network secure. It constantly watches the network to ensure that it is not under attack. But how does it do this? Let’s try to understand.
Transaction Monitoring: The bot keeps an eye on all transactions taking place on the network. It’s like a traffic officer, who watches traffic (or in this case, transactions) on the road (the network).
Identification of Suspicious Activity: The bot is trained to recognize patterns that might indicate a potential attack. These patterns might be a sudden increase in transactions, unusually high-value transactions, or transactions coming from a source that is known to be malicious. It’s like a detective, looking for clues that something is amiss.
Alert the Network: If the bot spots something suspicious, it doesn’t just sit and watch. It alerts the network to the potential threat. Like a guard triggering an alarm when they see a thief.
Take Preventive Measures: Once an alarm has been raised, the bot can take preventive measures to protect the network. For example, suspending suspicious transactions or isolating the source of the threat. It’s like a guard closing the gates to prevent a thief from entering.
Learning and Adapting: The bot, thanks to machine learning, learns from each incident and adapts its strategies accordingly. This means that it gets better and better at identifying and stopping attacks over time.
In a nutshell, the Attack Detector Bot is a vigilant protector. It monitors, identifies, alerts, acts, and learns to keep the network safe from potential threats.
Forta Network Explorer
Forta Network Explorer is a tool designed to help users navigate and understand the Forta Network. It gives you a detailed and real-time overview of network activity, similar to blockchain explorers for networks like Bitcoin or Ethereum. The key features of the Forta Network Explorer include:
Transaction Tracking: The explorer allows users to view and track all transactions on the network. This can help identify trends, spot potential anomalies, or verify that transactions have taken place as expected.
Wallet Monitoring: The explorer allows users to view the activity of specific wallets on the network. This can be useful for tracking the movements of large holders (often referred to as ‘whales’) or monitoring the activity of wallets associated with a specific project.
Contract Interaction: The explorer enables users to view interactions with smart contracts. This can provide valuable insight into how different contracts are being used and can help identify potentially malicious contracts.
Data Visualization: The explorer provides a range of data visualization tools to help users understand network activity.
Alerts: The explorer also allows users to set up alerts for specific events. For example, you could set an alert to be notified when a certain wallet makes a transaction or when a particular contract is interacted with.
The Forta Network Explorer is an essential tool for anyone looking to understand the Forta Network, whether you’re an investor monitoring the market, a developer building on the network, or a researcher studying blockchain security.
Scam Detector Bot
The Scam Detector Bot is a powerful tool designed to provide threat intelligence for Web3 wallets, dashboard tools, and security and compliance solutions. It is an ideal resource for both retail and institutional audiences. The Scam Detector Bot can be used to build or supplement a blacklist, or as a transaction analysis tool to determine whether transactions are malicious.
Key Features of the Scam Detector Bot:
Threat Intelligence: The Scam Detector Bot provides threat intelligence about malicious smart contracts and EOAs that engage in scams and other end-user attacks. It relies on a collection of underlying Forta bots, each monitoring for a specific threat type.
24/7/365 Monitoring: Forta bots monitor on-chain activity around the clock. They use heuristic-based approaches and machine learning to identify malicious activity.
Labels and Alerts: When bots identify an attack or scam on-chain, they create labels and alerts. Labels are persistent tags placed on an entity responsible for a scam or attack. Alerts are real-time findings emitted by a bot about something that happened on-chain.
Threat Types Monitoring: The Scam Detector Bot currently monitors on-chain activity for various threat types, including Ice phishing, Social engineering native ice phishing, Fraudulent Seaport/Blur orders, Address poisoning, and NFT Wash trading.
Access via GraphQL API: The Scam Detector Bot’s labels and alerts are available via Forta’s GraphQL API. This allows users to access threat intel from the Scam Detector Bot.
Tokens and Tokenomics
FORT token is an ERC-20 token operating on Ethereum’s EVM with a total supply of 1 billion FORT tokens. It has several functions and significant implications within the Forta network, which are essential for the network’s operations and security. Contract address: 0x41545f8b9472d758bb669ed8eaeeecd7a9c4ec29
Here are the uses for the FORT token:
Node Runner Staking: Like a Proof of Stake consensus, node runners deposit FORT as a security measure for the work they do, subject to penalties for non-performance or malicious actions.
Delegated Staking: FORT holders can delegate to node pools, enhancing network security and participating in rewards.
Bot Stake Requirement: A minimum stake (100 FORT) is required for any detection bot to operate on the network, protecting against spam and harmful bots.
Governance: Gradual decentralization of network governance is planned, starting with Council governance. FORT holders can participate in Snapshot Voting to influence Forta’s development.
Distribution
The token distribution is currently as follows:
45.5% for the community, 0.2% as rewards for node runners, 2.2% was allocated to other members of the Forta ecosystem, and 39.1% is still unallocated.
10% for OpenZeppelin, the company behind this project.
20% for initial contributors, i.e. the team (developers, etc.)
24.5% for financial backers, for example, VCs like a16z and others.
The token allocations for backers (VCs, Team, OpenZeppelin) are subject to a linear vesting of 4 years with a 1-year cliff (they will be completely locked for 1 year).
Governance
The governance of the Forta ecosystem is a fundamental element to ensure that the network remains an open and permissionless platform, available to anyone who wants to use it or build on it.
Forta Foundation
As the “supervisor” of Governance, there is the Forta Foundation, an independent and non-profit organization that holds certain assets (for example, public and open-source IP, Github repositories, and FORT tokens).
Forta Governance Council
The Forta Governance Council is made up of members of the Forta community and ecosystem experts, elected by FORT token holders. The Council’s task is to facilitate the collective action of its community and guide the ongoing evolution of the Forta network. You can see the “Team” section to discover the people who are part of the Council.
Proposal Processes
The Forta Proposal Process (FPP) is a public framework aimed at empowering the Forta community, allowing members to contribute to Forta’s evolution. It takes place in the Forta Forum, a public space dedicated to Forta’s governance.
The process is divided into four distinct stages, but it is not a rigid framework and can sometimes change:
Initial Proposal
Discussion and Review
Community Vote
Council Deliberation
Team
Behind the scenes of this project is OpenZeppelin, a company that mainly offers a library for the development and management of smart contracts on Ethereum.
Therefore, we don’t have a specific team because there is indeed a company behind the development of this project. However, we can see who is part of the Forta Governance Council:
Demian Brener — Founder & CEO of OpenZeppelin
Hart Lambur — Co-Founder of UMA, an optimistic oracle (a system that allows connecting blockchains to real-world assets)
Jeremy Sklaroff — COO of Celestia, a crypto expert lawyer passionate about decentralized technology
Jonathan Alexander — CTO of OpenZeppelin
Juan Garre — Director of Forta Foundation, a serial entrepreneur who has been working for the Forta Foundation since its inception
Mat Travizano — Founder of Rewilder, a serial entrepreneur now focused on managing environmental issues with blockchain technology
Tomasz Stańczak — Founder of Nethermind, and one of the early members of Forta
Partnerships
Let’s look at some of the main collaborations:
MetaMask to develop a wallet extension to improve end-user security.
Eleos Labs (another savvy company in the field of cybersecurity within Web3). The partnership is aimed at developing a suite of cybersecurity solutions to safeguard digital assets and ensure the safe operation of decentralized platforms.
ZenGo, a self-custody wallet launched in 2019, with over 800,000 users. To improve its security, ZenGo has integrated Forta’s “Scam Detector”, a system that analyzes transactions to identify potential risks. This collaboration has allowed ZenGo to provide a safe and reliable user experience, protecting its users from scams and attacks.
Staging Labs collaborated with Forta to integrate Forta’s real-time threat detection technology into Saferoot, an opt-in security solution from Staging Labs. The integration of Forta’s technology improves accuracy, offers customizable protection, and ensures that Saferoot remains at the forefront of threat detection and mitigation.
Other collaborations include Luabase, Alchemy, Aave, GMX, Trader Joe, BENQI, Balancer, dYdX and many more.
Community
Discord
Inside their Server, they have a 24/7 support team, who assist in interacting with their ecosystem. Also, the different network update proposals are discussed. In my opinion the community is very active and always ready to support those who need it.
Telegram
They have a TG channel dedicated exclusively to news about their ecosystem, where they send, for example, Governance proposals.
Their Twitter is active and very engaging. Articles or news from the cybersecurity or web3 sector are often posted.
Latest News
The most important innovation so far is the integration of fees within the network. The update will take place thanks to various types of subscriptions, functioning through smart contracts that would use NFTs to certify the ownership of a subscription. They can be paid in USDC or FORT. The earnings will be partially used as rewards for bot developers and node runners.
It has recently collaborated with Metamask and Eleos Labs, as mentioned earlier.
Conclusion
In the long term, Forta could serve as a public utility for the entire crypto space, securing DeFi, NFT, and DAO ecosystems. As the adoption of crypto becomes more mainstream, securing blockchains and digital assets is crucial, and Forta, with OpenZeppelin, is well-positioned to provide this solution, ushering in a new era of a truly open web.
