SONY Chain officially announced, Sony's own L2 is coming
The SONY Chain testnet is expected to go live in the next few days.
Last September, Sota Watanabe, CEO of Web3 company Startale Labs, announced on his social platform that Startale Labs and Sony established a joint venture company, Sony Block Solutions Labs, to jointly develop Sony's blockchain Sony Chain, and Sota Watanabe served as the director of the joint venture.
In an interview with BlockBeats, Sota Watanabe revealed that he has maintained a close cooperative relationship with Sony's subsidiary Sony Network Communications, and that an external director of Startale Labs once worked for the subsidiary and has been leading the Sony Chain project directly at Sony headquarters since April this year.
Related reading: "Exclusive interview with Astar founder: Akio Morita is my idol, Sony could have made the iPhone"
Startale Labs CEO Sota Watanabe (Startale Labs), source: coindesk
Today, Sony Block Solutions Labs officially announced the details of Sony Chain-Soneium, which will be launched as Ethereum L2 and will use Optimism Rollup technology, built using the OP Stack of the Optimism blockchain ecosystem. Soneium is expected to go live on the test network in the next few days, and will subsequently join Optimism's super chain to expand the ecosystem.
According to the official introduction, Soneium's partners include Astar Network, Optimism, Chainlink, Alchemy, Circle, and Circle.
「ZK Team」 is building OP Rollup for Sony
Sota Watanabe is also the founder of Astar Network, which is one of the first parallel chains launched in the Polkadot ecosystem. In September last year, it officially announced the cooperation with Polygon Labs to create Astar zkEVM, which was developed using the Layer 2 protocol of the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK). The mainnet was launched this year.
Here is a simple explanation of the relationship between Astar Network, Sony Chain and Startale Labs. In general, these three products or companies are related to Sota. Sota is the founder of Startale Labs and Astar Network. Startale Labs inherited the technology and knowledge base that Sota gained in the operation of Astar Network. Startale Labs also cooperated with Sony, obtained funds from Sony, established a joint venture with Sony, and worked closely on the Sony Chain project.
Astar Network's progress in ZK once became the focus of market attention. Investor DFG once told BlockBeats that it valued Astar Network's ability as one of the two Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains to be launched on Polkadot, and greatly appreciated the Polkadot architecture and EVM compatibility, as well as the capabilities of Sota and his team.
Related reading: "Astar Network launches zkEVM testnet to promote cross-chain interoperability progress"
As the founder of Astar Network, Sota Watanabe has been involved in the development of public blockchains since 2019. However, with the fading of Polkadot, Astar Network has gradually lost attention in the domestic market. Now that Soneium is officially released, Astar also announced that it will transition Astar Layer 2 and the community to Soneium.
This initiative aims to more closely integrate Astar Network with Soneium, leveraging the strengths of both ecosystems to advance the Soneium vision. Specifically:
· Enhance the utility of ASTR: Integrate ASTR into the Soneium L2 ecosystem as a key asset. Maintain its role in ecosystem projects and expand its utility.
· Leverage the Soneium ecosystem: Put Soneium L2 at the heart of innovative applications, driving adoption and engagement.
· Community empowerment: Create more opportunities for existing users to serve as early adopters of new projects and dApps. Enable the community to become a key player in emerging initiatives within Soneium L2.
· Future Outlook: Position ASTR for potential benefits within the expanding Soneium ecosystem. Prepare for the second phase of Astar Evolution and make future opportunities more clear.
「GM with Soneium」
Sony's exploration of the Web3 industry is multi-faceted in the fields of metaverse and NFT, but Sota Watanabe once said that Sony Chain will not only focus on games or NFT, but will serve all fields and become a general blockchain.
Soneium will be built on the existing Ethereum infrastructure and will be responsible for data processing to solve the problems of slow processing speed and high fees usually associated with L1 solutions. Soneium Op Stack and Superchain create a scalable, EVM-compatible, developer-friendly blockchain.
As Ethereum L2, Soneium leverages Sony Group's vast global distribution network in the fields of entertainment, finance, electronics, and games in order to bridge the gap between Web3 innovation and everyday consumer applications, and truly bring blockchain technology to the mainstream, that is, Go Mainstream with Soneium. Soneium will provide a comprehensive Web3 solution from infrastructure to application layer by developing the underlying infrastructure blockchain of Web3.
To this end, Soneium is planning to be a comprehensive development ecosystem and support advanced smart contract functions. Its scalable infrastructure is designed to handle high-volume applications, ensuring that projects can develop without restrictions. In addition, Soneium will provide developers and creators with extensive documentation and will be equipped with a set of third-party development tools needed to develop and launch applications, allowing developers of all skill levels to easily get started and advance their projects.
Under the "GM with Soneium" concept, in addition to applications for existing Web3 services, Sony Block Solutions Labs will also consider new services associated with businesses within the Sony Group to create use cases that can spark interest in people who have never used Web3 services.
For example, supporting creators to expand their creativity and strengthen their interaction with fan communities. Specifically, Sony Block Solutions Labs will study the protection of creators' creative rights, new profit return mechanisms to support creators and fans, and opportunities for creators to be active in the digital and real worlds.
In an interview with BlockBeats, Sota Watanabe said that Astar represents Japan to some extent, and if Astar fails, it will have a great impact on Japan's Web3. And being able to talk to large companies and regulators is also Astar's advantage. With the cooperation between Sony and Astar, Soneium may truly realize its vision of a general blockchain platform.
Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.
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