Binance Alpha Announces the Launch of the SOON Token (SOON) Targeting the Ethereum Virtual Machine Market

On May 19, 2025, Binance Alpha officially announced the launch of the SOON token ($SOON)

Author: Lawrence, Mars Finance

On May 19, 2025, Binance Alpha officially announced the launch of the SOON token ($SOON) on May 23, becoming the first trading platform to integrate this project. This move marks a key breakthrough for the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) ecosystem in the Layer2 track, and it also heralds a new phase of large-scale application for modular blockchain technology. As a star project with over $22 million in funding in 2025, aiming to address the performance bottlenecks and cross-chain interoperability issues of public chains like Ethereum with its architecture design of "decoupled SVM + OP Stack + configurable DA layer," and with a community-driven distribution mechanism and potential value capture ability in its token economics, has attracted significant attention in the market.

1. Team Background: From Aleo to SVM Infrastructure, Gathering Top Industry Resources

The core team of SOON can be described as a "dream team" in the blockchain field.

CEO Joanna Zeng previously served as Vice President at the privacy public chain Aleo, leading the commercialization of zero-knowledge proof technology, and has accumulated extensive Layer2 development experience at institutions such as Coinbase and OP Labs.

Chief Marketing Officer Ruki Hu comes from Hong Kong's top investment bank JDI Global, where she led investments in SVM ecosystem projects like Sonic SVM. Her strategic management background from the HSBC Business School at Peking University provides methodological support for SOON's market expansion.

Technical lead AndrewZ is a Rust language expert who participated in the development of the Solana core client and has deep experience in optimizing the SVM architecture.

Importantly, the advisory team includes heavyweight figures such as Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and core developer Mustafa Al-Bassam from Celestia. This integration of "technology + capital + ecosystem" resources allows it to stand out quickly in the fiercely competitive Rollup track.

2. Financing Journey: Community-based Fundraising Paradigm Innovation, $22 Million Building a Moat

Image source: @_FORAB

SOON's financing path breaks the traditional venture capital-led model, pioneering an innovative fundraising mechanism of "NFT sale + community co-construction."

In January 2025, the project raised $22 million through tiered NFT sales, with 51% of the tokens distributed fairly through three types of NFTs: the $900 tier provides short-term liquidity with a 3-month linear unlock, the $2,850 tier is designed with a 12-month lock-up period to filter long-term holders, while the $22,500 high-threshold tier locks for 36 months to attract strategic investors for deep participation in ecological construction. This design avoids the selling pressure from VC shares on the secondary market and differentiates user risk preferences through time dimensions.

The lineup of investors also reflects industry recognition—top institutions like Hack VC and ABCDE Capital led the investment, with strategic backing from the Solana ecosystem fund and Celestia Labs, and even traditional capital like IDG and PAKA rarely making a layout. The funds are primarily directed towards three major areas: 40% for mainnet and cross-chain protocol development, 30% for developer ecosystem incentive programs, and the remaining 30% reserved for market volatility and security audits.

3. Technical Architecture: Decoupling SVM to Restructure Performance Boundaries, Modular Design Defining Industry Standards

SOON's technical innovation revolves around three core components:

1. SOON Mainnet: The First SVM Rollup Execution Layer on Ethereum

By decoupling the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) from native consensus, the SOON mainnet achieves a block time of 50 milliseconds and a throughput of 30,000 TPS on Ethereum, more than 5 times the improvement over OP Rollups like Optimism. Its key technological breakthroughs include: integrating the Celestia light-chain as a decentralized architecture layer to provide a scalable and secure data availability service for SVM; and optimizing the Rust-based SVM runtime to achieve high throughput and low latency.

2. SOON Stack: Multi-chain Rollup Deployment Framework

Developers can deploy customized SVM Layer2 on public chains like BNB Chain and Ton with one click through SOON Stack. Testnet data shows that the svmBNB chain built on this framework has achieved 15,000 TPS and supports high-performance scenarios like AI agent trading and real-time game engines. This "Lego-style" architecture makes SOON the first universal Rollup solution spanning both EVM and non-EVM ecosystems.

3. InterSOON Protocol: Intermediary-free Cross-chain Communication Layer

Based on an improved messaging protocol from Hyperlane, it allows assets and smart contracts to interact directly across multiple chains, eliminating the custodial risks of cross-chain bridges. In test cases between Solana and Ethereum, the cross-chain