Yesterday, Solana’s Layer 2 network, Sonic, announced the completion of a $12 million Series A funding round. Known for its high performance compared to most EVM networks, why does Solana need a Layer 2 network, and how will Sonic create value for Solana? Odaily explores Sonic’s vision, features, and recent participation opportunities in this article.
### Project Overview
#### Why Sonic is Needed?
Solana is renowned for its high performance. However, with the increasing number of users, applications, and network activities, while it’s not yet straining, individual network fees have soared to tens or even hundreds of dollars during periods like ORE mining and the Meme coin boom. Users have noticed higher perceived latency and failure rates, highlighting the necessity for scalability. Sonic provides a detailed data analysis:
– Wallet accounts have grown from 100,000 in 2022 to 1 million in 2023, projected to reach 10 million by 2025, 25 million by 2026, and 50 million by 2027.
– DApp and DeFi transaction volumes have grown significantly, from an average of 4,188,712 daily transactions in January 2022 to 205,823,984 in January 2024, an increase of 48 times. Conservative estimates suggest daily transactions could surpass 4 billion by 2026.
– Under such demand pressures, Solana’s L1 throughput capabilities face significant challenges. Currently operating at 2500-4000 TPS, Solana’s average ping time fluctuates between 6 to 80 seconds, with most times around 40 seconds. Historical data from 2023 shows that when TPS exceeds 4000, Solana’s transaction success rate drops to 70% to 85%, attributed to network congestion and physical delays.
Sonic further points out that for blockchain games with hundreds of thousands or even millions of users, on-chain interactions severely impact Solana’s main chain performance. Sonic aims to address the high concurrency game performance needs on Solana.
Sonic’s initial gaming partners include Lumiterra, Rage Erffect, JogoJogo, FoMoney, and Kepler Homes. Additionally, Sonic has launched a funding program to onboard over twenty gaming partners onto its network.
#### Sonic Features
According to Sonic’s official documentation, Sonic is the first atomic SVM chain designed to establish independent game economies on Solana. Sonic facilitates game economies to roll up and settle on Solana without redeploying Solana programs and accounts, benefiting directly from Solana’s base layer services and liquidity.
Built on Solana’s first concurrency scaling framework, HyperGrid, Sonic aims to introduce customization and scalability while maintaining native composability with Solana. HyperGrid features rapid chain launching capabilities, allowing various narratives to swiftly establish their own dedicated chains. Developers can seamlessly deploy DApps from EVM chains to Solana through HyperGrid interpreters.
Finally, Sonic will develop a series of gaming growth, traffic, payment, and settlement infrastructures, providing game developers with specialized underlying code and practical tools.
### Funding Details
On June 18, 2024, Sonic announced the completion of a $12 million Series A funding round, led by Bitkraft Ventures, with participation from OKX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, Big Brain Holdings, Sanctor Capital, Cloud Nine Capital, and Matt Sorg, valuing the company at $100 million.
### Odyssey Event by Odaily
Sonic has launched the Odyssey testnet event, scheduled to commence on June 19 at 12:00 (UTC+8). Users can participate through the [official website](link), although currently, the Odyssey site is inaccessible for unknown reasons. Odaily will update this article with instructions once the site is back online, as Sonic states that Odyssey will be one of the most crucial events in its ecosystem, offering potential airdrop opportunities to participants.
