Sonic Labs announced its layer-1 blockchain, Sonic, will launch publicly soon after achieving its Genesis block. Positioned as a faster, low-fee successor to Fantom Opera, it receives support from the Fantom Foundation.
Layer-1 Blockchain Out Soon
Sonic Labs has announced that its layer-1 blockchain, Sonic, will be publicly launched “soon” following the completion of Genesis, the first completed block of transactions on its chain.
“Genesis achieved. Block zero. Infrastructure deploying. Public soon,” Sonic Labs said in a Dec. 2 X post.
Sonic is a blockchain that is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine and is designed to provide speed. It is intended to provide innovators with “attractive incentives and powerful infrastructure.”
The rebranding to Sonic is intended to improve network performance by reducing latency and transaction fees, and it is considered a successor to the current Fantom Opera network.
Sonic Labs is also receiving support from the Fantom Foundation — a nonprofit organization that has developed Fantom’s decentralized finance ecosystem since 2019.
Just a few days after Sonic unveiled an upgraded “testnet 2.0” named “Blaze” on Dec. 1, the company is moving closer to the public launch.
S token airdrop snapshot completed
Sonic also announced that it had finalized a “Snapshot” for the airdrop of its “S” tokens on December 2.
Approximately 200 million S tokens will be distributed via airdrop, and they can be exchanged for Fantom tokens on a 1:1 basis. Sonic’s arcade games, including Coinflip, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Plinko, and Mines, were the means by which S airdrops could be acquired.
Nevertheless, Sonic has officially discontinued those activities in anticipation of the public mainnet launch.
Sonic will operate on a proof-of-stake mechanism, which will enable S holders to stake their tokens.
Sonic’s objective is to become the most rapid EVM chain.
During its testnet, the Sonic blockchain attained a transaction finality of 720 milliseconds, which could enable it to compete with the fastest EVM chains, such as Base and Solana. Transaction finality is the time it takes for a transaction to become irreversible.
Sonic is also striving to establish itself as the preferred blockchain for developers, as 90% of the network’s transaction fees are returned to them, according to Andre Cronje, the company’s chief technology officer. Cronje previously served as Fantom’s Chair and Technical Advisor from 2018 to 2022.
In June, the Fantom Foundation disclosed a $120 million FTM allocation to aid Fantom developers in transitioning their projects from Fantom to the Sonic network.
It announced the establishment of the Sonic Foundation on May 23, just one month prior.
The Sonic Foundation is responsible for the governance of Sonic, the management of the treasury, the coordination of alliances, and the development of a robust decentralized finance ecosystem.