Somnia went live on September 2, 2025, and the team says the mainnet is built to run truly real-time apps — games, social worlds, and metaverse services — at internet scale. The project points to a successful testnet run that processed over 10 billion test transactions and claims production throughput in excess of 1,000,000 transactions per second with sub-second finality.
What was actually done (short): Somnia published a mainnet launch and technical docs showing an EVM-compatible Layer-1 focused on extreme throughput and low gas costs. The team documented its architecture and execution strategy (compiling EVM bytecode to machine code, optimized execution engine, and the MultiStream consensus ideas) and said the design targets apps that need instant responses and massive concurrent users. Independent writeups and a validator-node post report the devnet hit ~1.05M TPS on specific transfer workloads during testing.
Token & network mechanics you should know: SOMI is the native dPoS token with a fixed max supply of 1,000,000,000 SOMI; early circulating figures are around ~160M SOMI at launch. The token’s documented utilities are clear and narrow: gas for transactions, delegation/staking to secure the network, and governance/treasury participation — no built-in lending or margin systems appear in the core protocol spec. Validator operators must stake a significant amount (docs list 5,000,000 SOMI as a validator threshold), while ordinary users can delegate to validators and earn a share of gas and treasury rewards.
Ecosystem traction & platform signals: major platforms moved quickly — Somnia appeared in Binance HODLer/airdrop activity and CreatorPad/HODL campaigns around the launch window, which amplified liquidity and user onboarding on day one. That kind of exchange-level support usually speeds distribution and raises short-term attention, but it also brings typical launch volatility.
Why this matters (practical): Somnia’s value proposition is straightforward — make fully on-chain, high-frequency apps feasible without off-chain shortcuts. If the chain sustains real TPS under diverse workloads (not just single-thread transfer tests), it unlocks new classes of apps (live multiplayer, streaming-scale NFTs, high-fps metaverse interactions). The real test is sustained, multi-validator performance under real economic load, not just lab numbers.
Risks & what to watch now: (1) validator decentralization — will many operators run full nodes or will staking thresholds concentrate control? (2) real workload proofs — watch live game deployments and measured TPS under stress tests; (3) fee burn & treasury use — check how much gas is burned vs. rewarded; and (4) token unlock schedule — vesting cadence can change circulating dynamics. These signals separate durable infrastructure from a launch hype cycle.
Sources (checked Sep 10, 2025): Somnia mainnet launch & testnet numbers; Somnia docs (overview & tokenomics); validator node notes; CoinMarketCap / market data; Binance HODLer airdrop & CreatorPad announcements.