Factom becomes Accumulate

5 min readNov 26, 2021

Earlier this year, the Factom protocol overhauled its governance by focusing on decisiveness. The mission of our new structure was simple: bring back Factom as a real contender in the fast-moving blockchain space.

The analysis confirmed it — nearly every aspect of the Factom protocol is in need of a major overhaul. From branding, tokenomics & resources, to the technical underpinnings. None meet the high-performance requirements of this time.

And so it’s time for change. We’re happy to announce that after a unanimous vote by Factom’s node operators, we are officially rebranding and upgrading into Accumulate. Accumulate Network will be a functional continuation of Factom and a complete rewrite of the Factom codebase from the ground up. The mainnet upgrade fork is targeted for early 2022.

Accumulate: the origin story

In 2021, Factom Inc assets were acquired by Inveniam Capital Partners, bringing along lead engineers Paul Snow and Jay Smith. Inveniam Capital Partners, now one of the largest blockchain patent holders in the United States, created the Defi Devs subsidiary to be lead developers for a next-generation protocol that meets Inveniam’s projected needs. Enter Accumulate. This wealth in patents, along with a deep commitment of resources from an industry team that has literally orders of magnitude more breadth and depth than Factom has ever known, will be extremely beneficial for future Accumulate development.

Please go here to learn more.

The Bridge to the Digital Economy

The Accumulate Network is an identity-based, Vetted Delegated Proof-of-Stake blockchain with secure, scalable and extensible features to power DeFi applications. Accumulate leverages industry “standard” consensus (tendermint) and side chains to get the scaling and rapid transaction clearance we now know the market admires and rewards. Accumulate can serve as a DNS service for the internet. Other chains under Accumulate can be addressed in a standard way via URLs. A transaction between chains could be accomplished with Accumulate serving as both the communications layer and an audit layer. DeFi adoption will be driven by delivering innovative solutions. In this respect, Accumulate will become “the bridge to the digital economy”.

Base Features

Accumulate improves on Factom in nearly every way. For a full introduction, go here.

Tokenomics

The tokenomics are designed around the following:

Hard cap of 500M ACME tokens.
Retain Factom’s mint and burn model.
Introduce staking to the ecosystem.
Upgrade Activation Block: 30% of supply, 150M tokens.
60% of that initial 150M is to support upgrade participants, 40% for protocol promotion.
Convert existing Factoids to ACME tokens at a 5 ACME to 1 FCT ratio, meaning 50M ACME tokens will be available after all FCT is converted.
Approximately 300M tokens unissued after Activation Block and Factoid conversions.
16% of outstanding tokens to be distributed annually.
Staking percentage to be decided by the community.
ACME supports Simple Token Addresses and Simple Data Chains.
ACME will support RC1 signatures on STAs that are built from converting Factoid addresses with existing FCT balances.
Simple Data Chains will convert with the data scraped from Factom along with timestamps.
Entry Credits will not be converted (a total of less than 6,000 dollars).

Community Impact:

Accumulate is set to be a complete replacement of Factom. Compatibility with existing Factom APIs will still be retained to the greatest degree possible. Existing data on the Factom network, including token balances, will be ported over and converted to Accumulate automatically.

Factom Authority Node Operators will become Accumulate Validators at the upgrade fork.

Accumulate is designed to support at least 30 to 50 validators to start. The architecture supports orders of magnitude more validators with volume.
The architecture is designed to require substantially less hardware per transaction for validators.
Additional new roles will be added, such as data servers to offload the historical data distribution tasks.
Because the Accumulate Distributed Identities (ADIs) are built in, on-chain voting and organization is possible straight away. With these tools, we can be nimbler and include more parties in the processes (staking, mining, etc.).

Factom’s current off-chain governance processes (grants, elections) will cease at the upgrade fork. The role for the Factom Council until then will be to digest and share information as it reaches us — making sure every Factoid holder is aware of the upcoming transition and all its important details. The interim Factom Director, Niels Klomp, has stepped down after all parties unanimously approved Factom’s new direction. We thank Niels for his incredible hard work. This concludes the mission we originally set out to achieve and the council will not be nominating another Director candidate.

In closing, we’d like to repeat the words of Paul Snow:

“The work with the community starts now! And we need input from the community in moving forward.”

Here are some links to Accumulate’s socials — we hope to see you there!

Website: https://accumulatenetwork.io/
Github: https://github.com/AccumulateNetwork/accumulate
Discord: https://discord.gg/CYnaF8w2C2
Telegram: https://t.me/accumulatenetwork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/accumulatehq
Medium: https://medium.com/@accumulate
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Accumulate

If you have any questions that are left unanswered, please ask them via the links above or submit them at https://forms.gle/3kvDFQyQtxuk3r9S7

FAQ

What is the timeline for the upgrade?
The timeline is being worked out. There are technical and marketing needs to consider. It will likely be in the first half of 2022, everyone is hard at work to bring that in as much as possible.

Is there a testnet?
Yes, you can install the mobile Accumulate wallet from your Apple or Google app store today and play with the testnet. Please visit https://accumulatenetwork.io/2021/11/accumulate-testnet-1-0-rialto-release/ for the full details.

How do I convert my FCT tokens into ACME tokens?
Your factoids will be automatically converted at the upgrade fork at a 5 ACME to 1 FCT ratio. There is nothing you have to do or ‘activate’. You will be able to import your FCT addresses into any Accumulate wallet as long as you have your original FCT address seed phrase / keys.

What happens to my FCT kept on an exchange?
We expect exchanges will convert your FCT to ACME. We will reach out to them and keep you informed. Exchange representatives looking to coordinate the upgrade can reach us at exchanges@factomprotocol.org.

What is the reason behind the 5:1 conversion?
With a 5:1 ratio, all the converted Factoids (10M) should yield 50M ACME tokens. The total ACME supply is 500M. The upgrade fork releases 150M tokens (60% towards upgrade participants, 40% for promotion). Together with the 50M from the factoid conversions, the initial circulating supply will be 200M ACME. The remaining 300M ACME are unissued and will be used as validator rewards and other incentives with 16% distributed annually.

While some may worry about being diluted , we feel that this is a tradeoff that will ultimately prove beneficial to all . Securing the financial viability of the protocol for the longer term is important, and it opens up more growth opportunities than ever. How Accumulate handles its unissued supply is still being worked out, and your input matters.

How can I help?
Join the Accumulate socials, read up and start pitching in! The real work starts now and community input will be vital in shaping processes going forward.