FORTHcoming - Looking at the Future of Forth
The Beginning: The Spectacular Launch of Forth
The launch of Forth in April of 2021 was quite a spectacle. The token was instantly available on Coinbase day one. It was quite an accomplishment, putting Forth in the same class as Uniswap, another governance token that also had a day one listing on Coinbase. For AMPL holders, this felt like a major flex of what can be accomplished through strong partnerships and exchange relationships.
The airdrop was extremely lucrative, with some participants earning 4,5 even 6 figures worth of USD that was magically airdropped in their lap overnight. Needless to say, Forth made a huge splash, and until this day, it has a bit of a cult following. At the time of this writing, of all the tokens in the Ampleforth ecosystem, Forth is the most accessible.
Forth's Role
Since then, Forth has served a critical role as the governance token for the Ampleforth ecosystem. Forth governs Ampleforth's and Spot’s parameters, upgrades, and overall direction. This is not a small task, decisions on rebase parameters alone determine how AMPL and Spot behave and react to market volatility. Additionally, Forth can direct DAO capital, and also incentivize liquidity via the Geyser which helps shape the direction of the ecosystem.
However, while voting power is important, the market has consistently shown that governance only tokens often underperform unless they evolve into something more: assets that capture real economic value.
I believe Forth is at a turning point. If the Ampleforth ecosystem continues to grow with Spot as a stable yield bearing unit and stAmpl offering leveraged exposure, the governance layer may just capture a lot of that upside.
Learning from Successful Models: The HYPE Case Study
A prime example of a governance token that succeeded from an growth perspective is HYPE, the token of the Hyperliquid ecosystem. Hyperliquid is a Layer-1 decentralized perpetual trading exchange that uses order books to deliver a CEX-like experience on a DEX. In its token model, about 97% of fees are automatically allocated to buy back HYPE, with a portion also used to burn tokens and reduce supply. During peak periods, Hyperliquid achieved over 1.5 trillion in trading volume and nearly 100 million in fees. This aggressive revenue to buyback loop propelled HYPE to one of the strongest performances among DeFi governance tokens.
Potential Enhancements for Forth
While nothing has been solidified just yet with the core development team of Ampleforth, a few ideas have been tossed around, with the team seeming open to profit sharing with a staked Governance token (which is a popular model with some of the bigger Governance tokens) and also a possibility of token buy back and burn similar to HYPE explained above. Again, at the time of this article nothing is set in stone, and the future enhancements for Forth at this time are pure speculation.
There have also been some rumblings about the next Generation of assets Forth will govern, such as Spot and stAmpl inspired derivatives of popular tokens like Bitcoin. The timeline for these tokens are still TBD, but if the demand for these high and low volatility tokens takes off, then it may be entirely possible for Forth to govern several tokens in the long run, increasing its visibility, utility and overall use case.
Moving FORTHward and looking ahead
If the Ampleforth stack channels even a fraction of these mechanics, such as routing a percentage of Spot and stAmpl fees to Forth buybacks or staked-Forth revenue share the narrative shifts entirely.
Forth holders would no longer just vote on proposals, they’d be stakeholders in a revenue producing protocol. Drawing parallels to HYPE's perp trading features, a future platform governed by Forth enabling a unique leveraged token trading system could become a fee generating powerhouse, aggressively growing Forth as adoption scales.
It’s been several years since Forth's inception, and the future of Forth has never looked more promising. With the potential to govern not just Ampleforth and Spot, but a platform of next generation assets that are able to harvest volatility and leverage, Forth stands on the verge of a renaissance.
History has shown what this ecosystem can achieve so far, and if the past is any indicator, the best chapters of Forth's story are still to be written.
May the Forth be with us all.
