Sony Block Solutions Labs, a subsidiary of Japanese Web 2 giant Sony, recently announced at WebX, Japan’s largest blockchain event, that its blockchain Soneium will soon launch a developer test network and start development activities for Soneium Spark. Soneium is the Ethereum Layer 2 launched by Sony Block Solutions Labs and Startale Labs. We have reported that this Layer 2 was developed using OP Stack. It will also be integrated into Optimism’s Superchain project in the future. Just imagine Optimism, Base, and Soneium Integrated into the same somatosensory chain. Previously, Sota Watanabe, founder of Astar and director of Sony Block Solutions Labs, bluntly stated that the chain launched by Sony has the opportunity to surpass the Base chain.
(Sony Group launches L2, determined to create the most widely adopted blockchain Soneium)
Announced cooperation infrastructure and VC lineup, introducing Sony’s industries
The official introduction to itself is: Soneium is a public chain, an open network that does not require permission. As a Layer 2 solution for Ethereum, Soneium is built on top of existing Layer 1 infrastructure and handles data processing to address the slow processing speeds and high fees typically associated with the Ethereum mainnet. By leveraging the Op Stack developed by the Optimism Foundation, Soneium creates a scalable, EVM-compliant, and developer-friendly blockchain.
It is understood that Soneium has now enabled testnet bridging, and the developer testnet is codenamed Minato, which means port in Japanese. Officials say Minato provides a fast and cost-effective development environment, providing Ethereum-compatible tools that are widely used in existing Web3 application development. At present, Soneium Minato has also gathered a number of developers and creators, and emphasized that it will shape the future of this community through user feedback.
At present, the official has announced the first batch of infrastructure projects participating in the cooperation, including cooperation with PYTH to provide oracle services, and Chainlink, which has also been officially announced before. It has also cooperated with Alchemy Pay, Transak and other legal currency exchange cryptocurrency entrances. In addition, announced infrastructure projects include Privy, Rair Protocol, Reservoir, Sentioxyz, Sequence, thirdweb, Web3 Auth, etc., as well as contract audit institutions such as QuantStamp.
In addition, the official lineup of VCs participating in the test network was also announced, including: BITKRAFT Ventures, Steve Lee, Digital Finance Group, Delphi Ventures, Newman Capital, Mechanism Capital, HashKey Capital, The Spartan Group and Xcelerator.
Sony Group also intends to introduce blockchain to its industries, including Sony Music, Sony Pictures, Sony Innovation Funds, INZONE, Sony Education Global, etc.
In fact, this operation is not difficult to understand. Take Sony Music as an example. A16z invested US$80 million in Story Protocol a while ago, indicating that the organization is beginning to focus on using blockchain technology to solve copyright issues. According to information from the Institute of Cultural Policy, Sony Music’s revenue in the first half of the year alone was as high as 4.47 billion U.S. dollars. If blockchain can be used as a solution for such a huge scale, it will definitely add a lot of applications.
In addition, the author speculates that cultural and art-related industries such as Sony Music and Sony Pictures have the opportunity to adopt NFT technology. This is also in line with their efforts to vigorously recruit creators and lay out NFT-related tracks.
Looking at the leaders in the Layer 2 field, Arbitrum was valued at approximately US$1.2 billion, Optimism at US$1.65 billion, and Starknet at US$8 billion. The future development of Soneium, relying on rich dad, can be said to be very impressive.
(Blockchain copyright platform Story’s financing valuation exceeds US$2.2 billion, and it is urgent to combat AI illegal abuse)
Soneium Spark plan announced: developers have the opportunity to receive an investment of US$100,000
At the same time, the official also launched the Soneium Spark incubation plan. This plan is aimed at the infrastructure construction of the Soneium development test network, hoping to transform breakthrough ideas into practical solutions on Soneium. In the Soneium Spark plan, new projects can get:
Guidance from industry experts.
Abundant resources and cooperation with the most advanced infrastructure.
Establish strategic partnerships with industry giants.
Stay close to the market.
Projects participating in the plan can receive an investment of US$100,000, which will be done in cooperation with a number of venture capital institutions. Applications for the first batch of Soneium Sparks will open in the coming weeks. Winners will be announced in mid-October. The event is held entirely online, with offline events held to provide opportunities for developers around the world.
Soneium officials also stated that they will provide a series of customized assistance to the winners of this project, including
Marketing Support: Comprehensive marketing support, including project featured on high-traffic portals, exclusive participation in upcoming Soneium events, robust social media outreach, and exclusive networking with the Soneium team at offline events.
Business support: Provide potential intellectual property cooperation, strategic partnerships with industry leaders, introductions to top exchanges, and connections with venture capital institutions.
Technical Support: Works with state-of-the-art infrastructure on Soneium to provide tools and advice.
Financial support: In addition to ecosystem fund investments, the Soneium team and Sony’s strong partners provide additional financing opportunities.
Soneium will open 13 areas in the first wave, and winners will receive assistance from the ecosystem
Soneium officials also stated that they currently plan to target the following areas:
DeFi
1. Decentralized exchange (automatic market maker model)
2. Decentralized exchange aggregator, pooling liquidity from multiple exchanges
3. Decentralized lending platform
4. Interest rate and points tasks, earn rewards by providing liquidity or participating in specific activities
5. Perpetual contracts and synthetic asset trading platform
6. Decentralized options trading platform
7. Decentralized derivatives trading platform, including futures, options, etc.
8. Over-collateralized stablecoin protocol, issuing stablecoins through mortgaged crypto assets
9. And other DeFi applications, such as insurance, oracles, etc.
Web3 experience
1. NFT can be a creator or a trading market like MagicEden
2. Gaming – Blockchain-based games, usually using NFT or cryptocurrency for transactions (it is not explicitly described as GameFi, maybe the official hints that it does not necessarily need to be incorporated into the transaction model?)
3. Decentralized entertainment platform, such as the creation of music, movies and other content
4. Decentralized social platform, focusing on privacy and decentralized data management
Officials say they are looking for solutions that can inspire innovation and focus on ecosystem health, and teams willing to build native or exclusive projects on Soneium will be their priority, including projects that choose Soneium as the initial chain or migrate from other chains. . They will evaluate each team's technical, business, traction and roadmap, as well as their motivation to contribute to Soneium's growth. Projects planned to issue coins on Soneium on the roadmap will also be key points in their evaluation.
Participating teams will be provided with varying degrees of assistance based on gold and silver awards to expand their influence.
This article Soneium developer testnet is online! Joining hands with one vote of VC and infrastructure projects to build Sony Universe first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.
