Not the hedgehog but a the high-speed blockchain that’s reDeFing the DeFi world. Formerly known as Fantom, Sonic has undergone a major rebranding and is now faster, stronger, and more rewarding than ever. Let’s take a look at the chain that lets developers keep up to 90% of their app’s transaction fees.
Sonic, formerly known as Fantom, is a rebranded blockchain that supports a diverse range of applications, including GameFi and enterprise solutions, but more importantly, DeFi.
It does so with almost near-instant transaction speeds and a novel fee monetization strategy that offers developers a share of the transaction gas fees.
Sonic, formerly known as Fantom, is led by a team of seasoned professionals and innovators dedicated to advancing blockchain technology.
At the helm is Michael Kong, the CEO and CIO of Sonic Labs. Kong has been deeply involved in blockchain since 2013 as a member of the Ethereum community and has previously served as CTO at myStake, Digital Currency Holdings, and Liberté & Co.
Andre Cronje, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Sonic Labs, is often referred to as the “DeFi god” due to his profound influence on the decentralized finance space. Cronje played a critical role in saving the project during its early challenges and now leads the design and development of the Sonic network.
The Sonic team is further strengthened by a diverse group of experts and has also attracted significant financial backing, including a $10 million strategic funding round led by Hashed, with additional support from UOB Ventures, Signum Capital, Aave Foundation, and prominent angel investors such as Stani Kulechov, Robert Leshner, Michael Egorov, Fernando Martinelli, Tarun Chitra, and Sam Kazemian.
This review of Sonic (S) was created for informational purposes. This article is not intended for promotion.
SonicCS 2.0 is the new Sonic consensus protocol that builds upon the success of its predecessor, SonicCS 1.0. The new protocol is a DAG-based consensus protocol that overlaps elections, reducing space and computation effort.
In a DAG consensus protocol, each validator in the blockchain broadcasts an event containing a list of transactions to all other nodes and receives event broadcasts from other nodes. These sent and received events are stored in a directed acyclic graph (DAG), where each vertex is an event that points to several parent events.
To produce a block from a DAG, the events must be linearized into a total order by selecting leader events that consistently break symmetry in the partial order across all nodes. This process is called an election. When a leader event is committed, reachable events that have not been selected for blocks are topologically ordered, and their transactions are concatenated to form a new block.
Besides that Sonic achieves near-instant transaction finality and can process up to 10,000 transactions per second, or 180 million transactions daily and is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
But more importantly Sonic has features, other than the tech side that differentiate itself from others.
FeeM (fee monetization) is a game-changing innovation from Sonic that allows protocols to start generating revenue from day one. What’s remarkable is that 90% of transaction fees go straight back to the builders—not to validators. A model that puts developers first, making it easier to build sustainable DeFi applications and perhaps needed when incentives in crypto are becoming solely for money extraction and not for building.
Inspired by the ad-revenue models popularized by Web2 platforms like YouTube, FeeM ensures that developers directly benefit from the traffic they drive to Sonic.
The transaction fee breakdown on Sonic includes an a burn mechanism, where:
Any app on the Sonic network is eligible to participate in Fee Monetization. To apply, developers can reach out to SamHarc on Telegram to have their app added to the program. Once accepted, developers can actively claim their rewards on the Fee Monetization dashboard.
The Sonic Bridge, a gateway built for token transfers between Ethereum and Sonic, has grown to $1 billion since its launch in January 2025. The main assets supported by the bridge include $FTM, $USDC, $WETH, and $USDT.
The SonicLabs Gateway features a quasi-symmetrical design for two-way bridging, converting Ethereum-locked $FTM into $S on Sonic. It includes a fail-safe feature that enables fund recovery in the event of a bridge malfunction lasting more than 14 days, providing an added layer of protection for users’ assets.
With $USDC now native on Sonic and accessible via Circle Mint, and with cross-chain transfers with Circle’s CCTP v2, the chain also gains some credibility. With widespread centralized exchange support and DeFi adoption, $USDC on Sonic improves capital efficiency and lowers the barrier for developers to build DeFi products.
With the transition from Fantom to Sonic, the native token has shifted from FTM to $S tokens, which now serve as the backbone of the network by powering transaction fees, staking, and validator operations.
At launch, Sonic introduced a total supply of 3.175 billion $S tokens, reflecting the total supply of FTM. The circulating supply of $S tokens was set to match the circulating supply of FTM at the time of the rebranding.
Starting six months post-launch, Sonic will begin minting additional tokens at a capped rate of 1.5% of the total $S supply annually for six years. These newly minted tokens will be allocated to support scaling operations, marketing, strategic partnerships, ecosystem growth programs, and initiatives like Sonic University.
The migration process allows for a 1:1 conversion ratio from FTM to $S tokens during the initial six months following Sonic’s launch. There is no specific deadline for migration, as the Fantom Opera network will continue to operate indefinitely.
Sonic Points are user-focused airdrop points that can be earned as part of the ~200 million S airdrop. Designed to boost liquidity on Sonic and strengthen its ecosystem, the points program positions Sonic as a premier hub for DeFi enthusiasts and users seeking to maximize the potential of their assets.
To earn Sonic Points, hold and use whitelisted assets across various DeFi apps. These points will be distributed over multiple seasons as NFT positions.The first season began with Sonic’s launch and will conclude in June 2025.
Users can earn passive points by holding whitelisted assets directly in their Web3 wallets, such as Rabby or MetaMask, including hardware wallets. Assets held on centralized exchanges are not eligible.
Please note that WETH, scUSD, scETH, scBTC, LBTC, SolvBTC, and SolvBTC.BBN earn activity points only, not passive points.
To qualify for the S airdrop, you must hold or use the whitelisted assets listed in the table below. The multipliers are applied to the passive or activity points you earn.
| Asset | Multiplier |
| USDC.e, scUSD, stkscUSD, wstkscUSD, aUSDC, bUSDC.e-20 | 6x (Boosted) |
| s, wS, stS, OS, wOS, scETH, stkscETH, wstkscETH, scBTC, stkscBTC, wstkscBTC | 4x (Boosted) |
| WETH, LBTC, SolvBTC, SolvBTC.BBN, x33 | 2x (Boosted) |
Please note that WETH, scUSD, scETH, scBTC, aUSDC, bUSDC.e-20, LBTC, SolvBTC, and SolvBTC.BBN earn activity points only, not passive points.
The platform maintains full compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), is its own layer-one blockchain, has a new innovative incentive mechanism, and has one of the biggest brains in the DeFi space behind it.
Could it be that $S is onto something and could find its way into the top 10 biggest coins? Well, it could if they deliver what they are preaching. With more than enough money in their wallets and huge grants ready for anybody who wants to build on them, there is potential to really flourish in 2025.
Sonic is undeniably a force to be reckoned with in the DeFi space. As more users discover the benefits of holding and using assets like $S and $USDC on Sonic, and as the platform continues to expand the utility of Bitcoin in DeFi, it’s clear that Sonic is not just a fleeting trend but a serious player in the future of decentralized finance.
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