Solana launches Layer2? What impact will the Sonic testnet have on the ecosystem?

The MirrorWorld team, which built Solana Web3 gaming infrastructure in the past, announced this week the launch of the Solana Layer2 — Sonic testnet. What kind of project is Sonic? Why did Solana, which focuses on a single chain architecture, also start launching Rollups? What impact will it have on the ecology?

Solana will launch Layer2 network

The MirrorWorld team that builds Solana gaming infrastructure announced in the first quarter of this year that it will launch Sonic, a Layer 2 network based on Solana. This week the team announced the official release of the Sonic testnet and related marketing activities.

Sonic becomes the first SVM Layer2

The Solana ecosystem launched Sonic, and its representative community gradually began to think about the possibility and necessity of Solana Layer2. In the past many online commission competitions and crash incidents, there were a lot of discussions about this aspect, which gave birth to Sonic project.

(Why do transactions on Solana so often fail and get stuck lately?)

To perform transactions on the Sonic network, just like Ethereum Layer 2, project teams and users do not need to redeploy and set up programs and accounts on Solana. Ecological participants can directly operate based on the accounts and liquidity of Solana Layer 1.

What is different from the Layer 2 of the Ethereum ecosystem is that Sonic is the first modular SVM (Solana virtual machine) network to implement high-performance game applications on Solana while enjoying the security of the Solana network. To enhance players' gaming experience and provide customized flexibility in network settings for specific games or applications.

In addition, Sonic provides native integration tools for payments and settlement, as well as the development kit needed to build Web3 games.

Sonic is built on the HyperGrid stack

Sonic is the first Layer 2 built on the HyperGrid technology stack. HyperGrid is an extension mechanism developed by the Mirror World team for the Solana blockchain, based on the framework developed by CosmosSDK.

HyperGri provides a framework for developers in the Solana ecosystem to quickly build a network. Like the Superchain design similar to the OP Stack ecosystem, HyperGri shares the sequencer design, allowing efficient interaction between different sub-networks (Grid) while maintaining the autonomous operation of each network. . And anchored to the Solana main network to obtain consensus and finality, ensuring atomic interoperability of transactions.

Recommended reading: OP will move towards the second stage of L2, in line with Vitalik L2 decentralization roadmap Recommended reason: This article explains that Optimism can have more insights into the atomicity and security of the superchain for the integrated ecological Superchain concept and development stage understand.

HyperGrid will develop the hyperlink concept (Source)

Inheriting the design philosophy of CosmosSDK, HyperGrid introduces customizability, extensibility, and advanced data types, and can be natively combined with Solana. Represents the network based on it, and the network settings can be customized. For example, Sonic chooses to use SVM, while other networks can choose EVM. Maintain development team flexibility and maximize addressable market reach.

The Sonic team believes that this HyperGrid design may be able to integrate the decentralized liquidity of the EVM game chain.

Sonic is the first Grid orchestrated by the HyperGrid framework (Source) Sonic Marketing Campaign

The Sonic point system and activities have been launched on the 19th - Sonic Odyssey. Interested readers can participate appropriately.

Event website: https://odyssey.sonic.game/

Why does Solana need Rollups?

In fact, the Solana ecosystem has been widely known for its high-performance monolithic architecture from the very beginning. Under the official tone, the community has hardly built projects that violate this concept in the past. But why are Solana Rollups starting to appear now?

Why now? And why is it needed?

Official point of view: Game application value capture

The official Sonic team believes that as Solana-related applications receive market attention, the number of network users gradually increases, often resulting in insufficient network performance or even congestion. For example, the recent Ore mining and meme currency issuance platform Pump.fun has had a considerable impact on the Internet.

Recommended reading: What is Solana Fair Mining Project Ore? Why did the founder suddenly complain? Reason for recommendation: This article introduces the design concept of the Ore mining project, and adds how it affects Solana network performance and interrupts mining activities, which can show the popularity of the project and the lack of network space.

Therefore, in order to improve network performance to meet the needs of future game operations, and to allow projects that have attracted market attention to obtain more value capture and customizable space, there was the motivation to build Sonic.

Community opinion: Compromise of interests between the project and the public chain

Encryption researcher Chen Jian (Jason) believes that the main reason is that the project is mainly based on self-interest considerations.

Chen Jian said that although the founder of Solana had previously stated that Layer 2 was not needed, as Internet usage increased, Solana downtime was still a big problem. Layer 2 is currently the most effective way to expand Solana and have an impact, so Solana is not necessary. Not developing towards Layer2.

On the other hand, for top projects, the gas revenue generated by having a large number of users and traffic is a huge amount of money. Why should it be contributed to the Solana network or other public chains in vain? But at the same time, we are also worried that completely separating our growing system will have a negative impact on the project, so creating a Layer 2 is a solution that both parties can accept and get what they need.

Is the Solana monolithic architecture narrative already outdated?

The launch of Sonic Network has opened up new areas of development for Solana.

Some users in the Solana community have always believed that the future development of the Solana ecosystem will be dominated by single chains. However, if the Rollups network such as Sonic begins to appear, or re-staking projects such as Cambrian or Picasso, there are various signs. All show that Solana is gradually beginning to develop towards a multi-layer architecture.

Recommended reading: SOL version of EigenLayer? The craze for re-staking has hit the Solana ecosystem. Reason for recommendation: This article introduces the Solana ecosystem to organize the current status of re-staking development, so that you can more clearly feel the trend and diversity of Solana’s re-staking and multi-network architecture development.

In fact, both Pyth and MakerDAO intend to build their own application chains in the Solana ecosystem. However, the idea at the time was the concept of Solana forking side chains. Now, there may be more Solana Layer2 options to try. We look forward to seeing the Solana ecosystem in the future. Diversified and rapid development.

This article Solana launches Layer2? What impact will the Sonic testnet have on the ecosystem? First appeared in Chain News ABMedia.