According to Foresight News, Andre Cronje, co-founder of Sonic Labs (formerly Fantom), has disclosed the real costs associated with running a blockchain, even if only partially successful. Cronje detailed that the initial costs for oracles and stablecoins amount to $7.5 million, with annual costs of $3.5 million. Additionally, the initial costs for RPC, indexing, and dashboards are $200,000, with yearly expenses of $70,000. Other annual costs include $50,000 for VRF, keepers, wallet support, and governance, and $80,000 for explorers, custody, and risk management, totaling $13.2 million. These figures apply specifically to Sonic Labs.

Cronje also provided a breakdown of Sonic Labs' expenses from the previous year. Research and development costs were $10.9 million, while the ecosystem expenses reached $10.7 million. Legal fees amounted to $410,000, and compliance costs were $3.8 million. Infrastructure expenses were $2.4 million, marketing costs were $1.4 million, bounties were $1.2 million, sponsorships were $400,000, media expenses were $350,000, regulatory costs were $200,000, and event costs were $100,000. The total costs for the year amounted to $35.6 million. Cronje noted that these figures do not include the costs associated with listing on exchanges, which they fortunately do not need to do this year.