Sony’s Layer-2 Blockchain “Soneium” Goes Live

Sony, the 78-year-old Japanese electronics giant, is the latest legacy megacorp to explore blockchain technology. On Tuesday, the company announced that it is officially launching “Soneum,” a general-purpose blockchain platform.

The team behind Sony Block Solutions Labs (SBSL), a joint project between Sony Group and Singapore-based Startale Labs, describes Soneuim — technically a layer-2 network atop Ethereum — as “a versatile general-purpose blockchain platform” built to support a diverse ecosystem of gaming, finance and entertainment apps. According to SBSL, the launch comes after a four month-long test period that involved participation from 14 million wallets.

Sony’s network is yet more evidence that traditional technology companies might again be keen on blockchain’s ability to connect and commercialize the future of media. The chain is aimed towards “bridging the gap between web2 and web3 audiences, especially for the creators, fans and community,” SBSL said in a statement shared with CoinDesk. “The platform prioritizes user-centric design, simplifying blockchain interactions and evolving web3 from a niche hobby into an everyday experience.”

The team tapped Optimism’s OP Stack to build out their network — a customizable framework that lets developers use optimistic rollup technology to transact on Ethereum quickly and at a low cost.

Other companies using the OP Stack include the U.S. crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken, which use the tech to power their popular Base and Ink networks. Uniswap, the leading decentralized exchange, and Worldcoin, the Sam Altman-founded digital passport, also use OP Stack to power their layer-2 blockchain networks.

In many cases, the Optimism Foundation, which stewards the development of the OP Stack, has awarded grants to companies that agreed to use its tech. SBSL declined to comment on how many OP tokens they would receive as part of this deal, though previous reporting indicates that Optimism’s grants can be substantial.

In August 2023, Coinbase received up to 118 million OP tokens — worth $182 million at the time, or $192 million at today’s prices — to use OP Stack for Base chain. CoinDesk also reported that Kraken received up to 25 million OP tokens, worth roughly $100 million, when it agreed to use the OP Stack in January 2024 (now worth $42 million).

Similar grants are doled out by Optimism competitors like Polygon and Arbitrum, each of whom is dueling to build its own interconnected web of blockchains.