Whenever someone tells me they want to create a "blockchain game", I always ask one question: Why would players want to play your game? If the answer is "because it can make money", then this is not a game, it's a Ponzi scheme. If the answer is "because it's fun", then why go on-chain?

Somnia provides a third answer: because only on-chain can certain gaming experiences become possible.

Let me start with a specific example. The game Chunked alone generated 250 million transactions in five days. What does this concept mean? The entire Ethereum network's transaction volume in a year is at this level. A game, in five days, reached the annual transaction volume of the entire Ethereum network. This is not just a simple technical demonstration, but a rethinking of the essence of games.

The problem with traditional games is their closed nature. You have played for ten years in (World of Warcraft), accumulating countless gear and achievements, but these assets are forever locked on Blizzard's servers. You cannot take them to other games, cannot truly own them, and even when Blizzard decides to shut down the servers, everything you have will turn to nothing.

Somnia changes this game. By fully putting not only assets but also game logic and metadata on-chain, developers can create modular and composable systems. This makes use cases such as game prediction markets possible and accelerates the scalable development of games.

Imagine a scenario: you acquire a legendary weapon in Game A, and this weapon can not only be used in Game B but can also be broken down into materials in Game C, and displayed as a collectible in Game D. Even crazier, other developers can create entirely new gameplay based on this weapon. This is the magic of composability.

In the DeFi space, Somnia's capabilities allow for the creation of on-chain limit order books, fundamentally improving the trading experience, eliminating slippage, and reducing MEV. But I believe that games and entertainment are the true battlegrounds for Somnia.

Why do I say this? Just look at the data. Somnia's testnet officially launched on February 20, 2025, providing developers and users with a high-performance environment to test and build scalable blockchain applications. This architecture is designed for mass consumer applications, prioritizing ultra-high throughput, low fees, and real-world reliability.

"The reliability of the real world" is a key phrase. One significant reason blockchain games fail is that the user experience is too poor. Waiting for confirmations, paying gas fees, handling wallets... these are huge barriers for the average player. Somnia addresses these issues through technological innovations, but more importantly, it is also innovating at the product level.

Basketball.fun will launch in October 2025; this is a gamified NBA fan platform. Note, it is not a "blockchain basketball game" but rather an "NBA fan platform built on Somnia." This distinction in positioning is subtle yet significant. Users come here not to "play with blockchain" but because they love the NBA; blockchain is just the underlying technology that enhances the experience.

This shift in product thinking is crucial. Past blockchain games always put "blockchain" at the forefront, as if it were the selling point. But ordinary users do not care what technology you use; they only care whether the experience is fun. Somnia understands this, so it hides the technology behind the scenes and puts the experience center stage.

From a technical perspective, Somnia's high performance is driven by its multistream consensus, accelerated sequential execution, custom databases, and stream compression. These technological innovations are not for show, but to solve real problems. When your game needs to process tens of thousands of transactions per second, traditional blockchains simply cannot handle it.

But technology is just the foundation; the real challenge lies in content. Somnia is building an EVM-compatible blockchain aimed at supporting high-throughput applications, such as games, with a focus on low-latency performance and parallel execution. EVM compatibility is crucial because it means existing Ethereum developers can easily migrate over.