Factom (FCT)

Factom (FCT) was a decentralized publication protocol designed to build record systems that are immutable and independently verifiable. Founded in 2014 by Paul Snow, David Johnston, and Peter Kirby, Factom Inc. launched its mainnet in September 2015. The protocol enabled secure storage of digital proofs for data provenance and integrity, anchoring records to the Bitcoin blockchain without disclosing private data or relying on trusted intermediaries. Factom attracted enterprise clients including US government agencies and financial institutions before the company filed for bankruptcy in 2020.

The Factom network used a two-token model: FCT (Factoids) were burned to create Entry Credits (EC), which were used to pay for writing data entries to the blockchain. The architecture linked entries chronologically into chains using a distributed ledger, with entry data hashed and stored in distributed hash tables shared peer-to-peer. Consensus was maintained by a permissioned set of Federated Servers and Audit Servers selected based on performance and community support, using a Delegated Proof of Stake mechanism. The total FCT supply at shutdown was approximately 10.4 million tokens, with no hard cap as the protocol issued ongoing inflation for server operators.

After Factom Inc.’s bankruptcy filing in 2020, the open-source community continued operating the network under the Factom Protocol brand. The official website (factomprotocol.org) and block explorers have since gone offline, and the network is no longer active. FCT tokens continue to trade on secondary markets as a historical asset, but the protocol is no longer maintained or operational.