I was active on Fantom back in the dayā SpookySwap, dozens of tomb forks, riding the DeFi wave. It was a rush.
So letās walk through Sonicās story. Where it came from, where itās at, and why itās quietly doing its own thingāmaybe even surprising us.
1. From Fantom to Sonic: A DeFi Glow-Up Fantom was my playground once. Fast, chaotic, full of DeFi action.
By 2024, it had faded. $FTMās market cap (green) lingered at $1.5ā2 billion, but Total Value Locked crashed to $60 million at the lows from a wild $7.7 billion peak.
I felt that dropāthings got quiet. While price did recover 2024, the TVL never caught up again.
Sonicās rebrand was a reset. Swapped $FTM 1:1 for $S , launched mainnet in December 2024. TVLās now over $585 millionāgrowing so fast that I had to update this figure 4 times while writing.
Market capās at $2.1 billion. Hereās the kicker: S jumped 35% in the last few days to $0.75. So obviously there are things cooking.
2. Ecosystem: Rebuilding the Vibe Fantomās ecosystem hooked me ā it was a DeFi mess, but my kind of mess.
By 2024, it was a ghost town. Just a few staking protocols limping along.
Sonicās picking up where that left off. A $120 million fundās nudging projects over. Theyāve tossed a 200 million S airdrop pool to devs and users.
Over 60 dApps are live now, with an Aave V3 deployment very likely to happen soon. Governance proposal seems to be in the final stages.
Before Aave arrives, @SiloFinance is the undisputed lending platform on Sonic, also the protocol with the highest TVL at $190m.
The DEX with the most recent traction is @ShadowOnSonic boasting almost $100m TVL (DefiLlama). The oldie @beets_fi (prev. on Fantom) seems to lack behind a little bit.
Itās not the chaos I loved, yet. But itās got that Fantom sparkāneeds time to catch fire.
And shoutout to @SonicAssistant for consistently surfacing quality alpha across the network.
3. Technical Side: Speed Speed Speed Fantomās speed played a large role on why its fun. Sonicās doubling down on that.
@AndreCronjeTech is very vocal about Sonic's speed capabilities, claiming a maximum theoretical TPS of around 400k
Supposedly, the next Sonic consensus will bring a 2.04x average speed increase and 67.8% memory usage reduction, with plans for a further 3.1x VM throughput boost.
Under the hood, Sonic's consensus doesnāt even run on traditional blocks.
Andre Cronjeās laid out how it uses a DAG structure insteadāa web where transactions stream and confirm peer-to-peer. A transaction locks in once 2n+1/3 of the networkās stake picks it up. Thatās finalized, no ifs or buts.
Hereās where it gets slick. That confirmation can happen in under 400msāfaster than most chains churn out blocks. For compatibility with wallets, explorers, and RPCs, Sonic spits out a block every ~600ms, but only after 2n+1/3 of the network agrees on the prior receipt.
Andre calls this true finality. Unlike probabilistic or optimistic setups, Sonicās RPCs are synchronousāwhen you get a 200 OK, itās done, not just submitted. āThat is guaranteed finalityā
Exchanges only need one block to trust itāSonic and Avalanche are the only ones pulling this off. You will see this when depositing/withdrawing S
4. Tokenomics: DeFi-First Tune Sonic keeps Fantomās 3.175 billion supply. 6% airdrop hit users and devs.
Itās for fees, (delegation) stakingā1 S to startāgovernance too. If you want to run your own node, you do need 500k S, quite high barrier to entry, but they did hint on lowering it.
Fee Monetizationās the twist. FeeM hands devs up to 90% of their appās network fees. Steady cash flow, no constant pressure for fundraising or financing.
Likely one of Andre's developer aligned ideas, couldn't find any proof for that though.
Half the supplyās off exchangesācould jolt prices. Itās not perfect, but itās DeFi-first, not validator-heavy. Feels like Fantomās spirit, refined.
5. The Sonic Way: DeFi, Done Right Sonicās not chasing TONās Telegram crowdsāor Solanaās spotlight (not a good idea rn anyway). Itās sticking to DeFi, EVM roots, eyeing lending markets.
Itās got that DeFi pulse I knewājust less loud. Sonicās carving a lane, not shouting about it.
Conclusion Sonicās rebrand is Fantomās next chapter. TVLās rising, techās tight, ecosystemās budding.
S is climbing lately, dodging the altcoin slump. DApps are relatively thin still, but Sonic Labs is threading it together.
Fantom was my DeFi crash course. Sonicās picking up that batonāmight run further than I expected. Worth a watch. You?
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