Written by: Lucy
Last September, Sota Watanabe, CEO of Web3 company Startale Labs, announced on his social platform that Startale Labs and Sony established a joint venture, Sony Block Solutions Labs, to jointly develop the Sony blockchain Sony Chain, and Sota Watanabe served as the director of the joint venture.
In an interview with BlockBeats, Sota Watanabe revealed that he has maintained a close working relationship with Sony's subsidiary Sony Network Communications, and that an external director of Startale Labs once worked for the subsidiary and has been leading the Sony Chain project directly at Sony headquarters since April this year.
Sota Watanabe (Startale Labs), CEO of Startale Labs, source: coindesk
Today, Sony Block Solutions Labs officially announced the details of Sony Chain - Soneium, which will be launched as Ethereum L2, will use Optimism Rollup technology, and will be built using the OP Stack of the Optimism blockchain ecosystem. Soneium is expected to be launched on the test network in the next few days, and will then join Optimism's super chain to expand the ecosystem.
According to official introduction, Soneium's partners include Astar Network, Optimism, Chainlink, Alchemy, Circle, and Circle.
Embrace the OP Stack
Sota Watanabe is also the founder of Astar Network, one of the first parallel chains launched in the Polkadot ecosystem. In September last year, he officially announced a partnership with Polygon Labs to create Astar zkEVM, which was developed using the Layer 2 protocol of the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK). The mainnet was launched this year.
Here is a brief explanation of the relationship between Astar Network, Sony Chain and Startale Labs. In general, these three products or companies are related to Sota. Sota is the founder of Startale Labs and Astar Network. Startale Labs inherited the technology and knowledge base that Sota gained from the operation of Astar Network. Startale Labs also cooperates with Sony, obtains funds from Sony, establishes a joint venture with Sony, and works closely on the Sony Chain project.
Astar Network's progress in ZK has become the focus of market attention. Investor DFG once told BlockBeats that it values ââAstar Network's ability as one of the two Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains to be launched on Polkadot, and appreciates the compatibility of Polkadot architecture and EVM, as well as the capabilities of Sota and his team.
As the founder of Astar Network, Sota Watanabe has been involved in the development of public blockchains since 2019. However, with the fading of Polkadot, Astar Network has gradually lost attention in the domestic market. Now that Soneium is officially released, Astar also announced that it will transition Astar Layer 2 and the community to Soneium.
This move aims to more closely integrate Astar Network with Soneium, leveraging the strengths of both ecosystems to advance the Soneium vision. Specifically:
Enhance the utility of ASTR: Integrate ASTR into the Soneium L2 ecosystem as a key asset. Maintain its role in ecosystem projects and expand its utility.
· Leverage the Soneium Ecosystem: Put Soneium L2 at the heart of innovative applications to drive adoption and engagement.
Community Empowerment: Create more opportunities for existing users to be early adopters of new projects and dApps. Make the community a key player in emerging initiatives within Soneium L2.
Future Outlook: Position ASTRâs potential advantages within the expanding Soneium ecosystem. Prepare for Phase 2 of Astar Evolution to gain clarity on future opportunities.
ăGM with Soneiumă
Sony's exploration in the Web3 industry is multi-faceted in the fields of metaverse and NFT, but Sota Watanabe once said that Sony Chain will not only focus on games or NFTs, but will serve all fields and become a universal blockchain.
Soneium will be built on top of the existing Ethereum infrastructure and will be responsible for data processing to solve the slow processing speeds and high fees typically associated with L1 solutions. The Soneium Op Stack and Superchain create a scalable, EVM-compatible, developer-friendly blockchain.
As Ethereum L2, Soneium leverages Sony Group's vast global distribution network in the fields of entertainment, finance, electronics, and games to bridge the gap between Web3 innovation and daily consumer applications, truly bringing blockchain technology into the mainstream, i.e. Go Mainstream with Soneium. By developing the underlying infrastructure blockchain for Web3, Soneium may provide a comprehensive Web3 solution from infrastructure to application layer.
To this end, Soneium is planning to be a comprehensive development ecosystem and support advanced smart contract functions. Its scalable infrastructure is designed to handle high-volume applications, ensuring that projects can grow without restrictions. In addition, Soneium will provide developers and creators with extensive documentation and will be equipped with a set of third-party development tools needed to develop and launch applications, making it easy for developers of all skill levels to get started and advance their projects.
Under the "GM with Soneium" concept, in addition to applications for existing Web3 services, Sony Block Solutions Labs will also consider new services linked to businesses within the Sony Group to create use cases that can spark the interest of people who have never used Web3 services.
For example, supporting creators to expand their creativity and strengthen their interaction with fan communities. Specifically, Sony Block Solutions Labs will study the protection of creators' creative rights, new profit return mechanisms to support creators and fans, and opportunities for creators to be active in both the digital and real worlds.
In an interview with BlockBeats, Sota Watanabe said that Astar represents Japan to some extent, and if Astar fails, it will have a great impact on Japan's Web3. And being able to communicate with large companies and regulators is also Astar's advantage. With the cooperation between Sony and Astar, Soneium may truly realize its vision of a universal blockchain platform.
