Written by: GCR Research Team

Compiled by: Felix, PANews

Fantom was a major success story in DeFi in 2021, with its TVL peaking at $8 billion. But when chief developer Andre Cronje left and the bear market hit, Fantom lost its former glory. Now that Cronje has returned, Fantom has been rebranded as Sonic. This is not just a name change, but a new beginning.

This article will explore Sonic's core innovations, market response, and whether it will open the path to redemption for Fantom.

What is Sonic?

Sonic is not just a new name for Fantom. Sonic Labs CEO Michael Kong stated that this is a complete reboot. It is a new chain based on new technology, using a completely new but fully EVM-compatible virtual machine. The team is building a new blockchain from scratch because they were unable to make the changes they wanted to the old blockchain. Kong explained, 'You can’t rebuild an airplane while it’s flying. It’s much easier to build a new airplane on the ground and then take it to the sky.'

The new chain will handle 10,000 transactions per second, with confirmation times of less than a second. This is much faster than the L2 networks Sonic aims to compete with. While L2s are becoming increasingly popular, locking in $34 billion, Sonic believes their model has fundamental issues. According to Sonic Labs, these networks survive on money earned from sequencer fees, which they believe should belong to developers—the ones truly building useful applications. They feel that the value created by application developers is not being adequately compensated.

To address this issue, Sonic prioritizes developers. Its core feature is that developers can earn up to 90% of the gas fees generated by their applications. In addition, Sonic will provide developers with true control over their applications. They can set their own fee structures and create a smoother payment experience for users. Everything in Sonic is built around this idea: to provide developers with the tools and incentives to build better applications. The chain supports languages like Solidity and Vyper, allowing developers to focus on innovation instead of learning new tools.

Sonic is set to launch in December 2024, joining the fast blockchain arena alongside Solana, Sui, and Aptos. While it doesn't have the security of Ethereum like L2s, it offers something unique—the speed of a modern chain using Ethereum familiar tools. This places Sonic in an interesting position: it is built for developers who need more performance than L2s provide but want to stick with the Ethereum development environment. Currently, only Sei offers this, while Monad is trying to achieve it. Therefore, besides Ethereum L2s, these two chains may be Sonic's main competitors.

How does the technology work?

Sonic Virtual Machine

To eliminate the bottleneck caused by the lack of scalability in EVM, the Sonic Labs team built their own version of the EVM called the Sonic Virtual Machine. SVM is fully compatible with EVM but improves the way code execution is handled. When someone’s code runs, SVM converts it into a more efficient format in the client. It looks for common patterns in the code and replaces them with optimized 'super instructions.' This allows everything to run faster without changing the way developers work. All commonly used tools still work, and developers can continue to use Solidity and Vyper, and the chain still supports Geth 1.4.

Sonic Consensus Mechanism

Sonic uses a directed acyclic graph (DAG)-based consensus mechanism and adopts proof of stake. Unlike single chains where blocks must follow one another sequentially, each validator maintains its own local set of transaction blocks (called DAG). When transactions enter, validators bundle them into 'event blocks' and add them to the DAG.

Before creating a new event block, validators check two things: all transactions in the current block and some transactions they received from other validators. They then share these blocks with other validators through a process that does not require everything to occur in strict order.

Source: https://docs.soniclabs.com/technology/consensus

Unlike traditional blockchains, this DAG-based approach does not require validators to process the currently generating blocks, which limits transaction speed and finality. Validators can freely create event blocks that contain transactions and share these blocks asynchronously with other validators on the network, creating a non-linear transaction record. This improves transaction speed and efficiency.

When validators create event blocks, they propagate across the network to other validators. Once the majority of validators agree on a block, it becomes what is known as a 'root event block.' Then, these root blocks are added to the main chain, which is the final permanent record of all transactions agreed upon by everyone.

The entire process takes less than a second from start to finish. Transactions go through four steps: first, the user sends the transaction. Then, the validator places it in an event block. Next, that block propagates until the majority of validators accept it. Finally, it becomes part of the main chain. When you view Sonic through a block explorer, you only see this final main chain. All the complex work of event blocks in the DAG occurs in the background.

Each validator keeps its own copy of the main chain, which helps them process new blocks more quickly. This creates a clever balance: the DAG structure allows validators to work independently and quickly, while the main chain ensures that everyone ultimately has the same final record.

Sonic Token

The Sonic (S) token will be a traditional L1 token—used to pay gas fees, participate in governance, and secure the network through staking. At launch, Fantom (FTM) can be converted to Sonic (S) at a one-to-one ratio. The total supply will start at 3.175 billion Scoins, matching the current total supply of Fantom, with about 2.88 billion tokens circulating at launch.

Sonic hopes to avoid early inflation of validator rewards. The chain will use the remaining block rewards from Fantom instead of minting new coins, for a period of four years. When half the network is staked, these rewards (approximately 70 million per year) will provide validators with a 3.5% return. After these four years, the network will mint new tokens in each period to maintain a 3.5% reward rate.

Developer incentives

Sonic has created multiple programs to attract developers with its tokens. An innovation fund allocates 200 million S tokens to support new projects based on Sonic. These tokens will be granted as rewards to developers who create innovative applications.

The fee monetization program changes the way transaction fees operate, but it only applies to approved applications. Normal transactions on Sonic consume 50% of the fees, paying 45% to validators and sending 5% to the ecosystem treasury. Developers can apply to join the fee monetization program. If approved, their applications will receive 90% of the fees they generate, while validators will receive the remaining 10%. This structure allows successful applications to gain sustainable income while supporting network security.

Airdrop

Sonic plans to distribute 190.5 million tokens via airdrop, rewarding past Fantom users and future Sonic adopters. The team states that they have learned from previous user incentive activities—focusing not merely on rewarding large amounts of locked funds but on actual usage. This means that applications that do not require large amounts of TVL (such as DEXs, NFTs, games, etc.) can also benefit from the user adoption metrics of this activity, not just DeFi applications like lending protocols and AMMs that require large TVL.

The historical activity of Fantom and future participation in Sonic will be rewarded in this airdrop. Past significant activities may include providing liquidity, validation, holding staked tokens (like sFTMx), and using NFTs. Future eligibility criteria may include providing liquidity on Sonic staking, deploying contracts, participating in community activities, and using bridges. The exact criteria are still unclear, but based on information shared by the Sonic Labs team, it can be assumed that activities will receive higher rewards than passive liquidity provision.

Additionally, the 'Sonic Boom' program allows 30 projects to win additional airdrop allocations to distribute to their users.

Finally, this airdrop includes a novel claiming mechanism with a 270-day vesting period. The system releases 25% of the tokens on the first day, with the remaining 75% as NFT positions. Users can claim the remaining airdrop at any point, but if they redeem early, a portion of the tokens will be burned. The longer these positions go unclaimed, the fewer tokens will be burned upon redemption. Those wishing for immediate liquidity without wanting to burn tokens can sell their NFT positions on the market.

Source: https://docs.soniclabs.com/funding/airdrop

How is the market responding?

Since the release of Sonic in August 2023, Fantom's token has seen a slight increase. The price rose from $0.41 to $0.71, a 75% increase, while Bitcoin rose from $64,000 to nearly $100,000, an increase of about 50%. Although there’s nothing particularly remarkable about this, it’s still a decent performance, as Bitcoin outperformed many altcoins during the same period. However, it lags far behind top-performing tokens like Sui, which increased fivefold from $0.7 to $3.6, especially as Fantom’s price has lagged behind other altcoins since Bitcoin recently broke its historical high. This indicates that the market seems to be skeptical about Sonic. There is currently no overwhelming enthusiasm in the market.

The total value locked in the Fantom protocol has also shown no highlights. Despite the promised airdrop, the network's TVL remains stable at around $100 million, far below the peak of $8 billion during the last bull market.

This may change when the Sonic mainnet launches, but recent history indicates a need for caution. Other networks, such as Scroll, experienced temporary spikes in activity during airdrops, but once rewards dried up, that funding quickly evaporated. High initial activity or TVL growth at launch may indicate short-term interest rather than lasting adoption.

Future potential

Sonic is in a crowded race, where block space is richer than ever. While Ethereum L2 may not reach the speed Sonic promises, their speed is sufficient for current demands. Therefore, most Solidity developers choose to build on these L2s, and other L1 networks struggle to attract builders and users. Sonic will face the same challenges.

The team emphasizes rewarding developers through gas fee sharing, but this practice also faces its own hurdles. History shows that this may not be the eye-catching feature Sonic hopes to achieve. Major applications like Uniswap, Aave, and Raydium have built successful businesses without gas rebates. NEAR Protocol attempted a similar approach but with little effect, ultimately reviving NEAR not due to its incentives for developers, but its focus on AI applications. The anticipated low transaction fees for Sonic complicate this challenge, as they will diminish the value of gas rebates.

For Sonic to achieve long-term success, it needs to attract applications with its superior speed and scalability. Think of today's DeFi protocols, perpetual DEXs, DePIN networks, and complex financial applications. The elements to achieve this are already in place—ample development and incentive funds, carefully designed incentive programs, and one of DeFi's most inspiring leaders, Andre Cronje. The team seems to understand this, and Andre Cronje is actively seeking partnerships with credit card companies and international banks.

Simply becoming another high-speed blockchain for custodial Memecoin gambling does not ensure lasting success. While such activities may provide early momentum, Sonic needs to establish a foothold in a clear niche market where its performance is paramount. From the team's carefully designed incentive programs and airdrops to institutional expansion, there is some hope. However, success in this competitive environment requires more than just good intentions. The future of Sonic depends on translating these plans into practice to demonstrate the true value of its high-performance infrastructure.