Introducing Sonic: A New Breed of DAG-Based Blockchains Designed for Long-Term Sustainability and Growth

Sonic introduced a set of design and economic solutions aimed at long-term sustainability and growth.

Sonic is a new blockchain that is designed to be an evolution of the Fantom blockchain. It is being launched with an extensive ecosystem, no significant insider unlocks of the $S token, and a large pool of rewards to distribute to users and developers. This positions Sonic to compete not only with emerging blockchains like Berachain and HyperEVM but also with well-established chains in the competitive landscape of Base, Solana, and Sui.

The architecture of Sonic builds upon Fantom’s Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structure used in its Lachesis consensus system. Sonic adopts a more optimized and tightly integrated DAG system, while still utilizing the Lachesisconsensus mechanism, which is an asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerant (aBFT) protocol. This allows transactions to be processed asynchronously and in parallel, which enables higher throughput and lower latency.

In terms of speed, Fantom Opera could handle anywhere from 15 to 2,000 transactions per second (TPS) and had a transaction finality of 1–2 seconds. However, Sonic aims for much higher—up to 10,000 TPS, and transaction finality of 720 milliseconds.

In addition to its technological advancements, Sonic also introduces a novel token and airdrop strategy. It will be using a dual airdrop mechanism, which includes Sonic Points and Sonic Gems to incentivize participation in its ecosystem. Sonic Points are user-focused and are earned by holding or using whitelisted assets across DeFi apps, rewarding individual engagement with the network. In contrast, Sonic Gems targets developers, distributing airdrop points to apps based on their ability to drive user activity and innovation. These Gems will be collected by apps and used to claim S tokens, which they can then allocate to their users.

Further complementing the airdrop, Sonic’s Fee Monetization (FeeM) program and Innovator Fund will empower its ecosystem. The FeeM program allows developers to earn up to 90% of the network fees generated by their apps, creating a sustainable revenue stream that reduces reliance on external funding and mirrors Web2 ad-revenue models. Meanwhile, the Innovator Fund offers up to 200 million S tokens from the Sonic Foundation treasury to accelerate app adoption and support groundbreaking projects. Together, these initiatives provide developers with financial incentives and resources, driving long-term ecosystem growth.

Sonic Gateway

Sonic Gateway is the native bridge that enables the transfer of tokens between Ethereum and the Sonic blockchain. The bridging process involves depositing assets, processing transactions in intervals called “heartbeats” for gas efficiency, and then claiming the assets on the destination chain.

While regular transfers from Ethereum take about 15 minutes to confirm, on Sonic Gateway, they’re nearly instant. And for users who require even more immediate transfers, the “Fast Lane” feature allows transactions to be processed with priority for a small fee.

This is a major improvement over Fantom Opera, which still relies on third-party bridges like Wormhole or LayerZero. These bridges have additional security risks and slower finality. In contrast, Sonic Gateway is fully native, trustless, and optimized for both speed and user control, eliminating the vulnerabilities of external intermediaries.

Explosive On-Chain Metrics Growth

Sonic officially launched on December 18, 2024, and it quickly gained traction. On March 30, 2025—which is about 103 days after Sonic’s launch—we can see that Sonic has demonstrated a significant increase compared to the last day of Fantom. While there are only 1.6 million addresses on Sonic so far, it quickly surpassed Fantom in TVL and stablecoin supply, which is an important indicator that shows an ability to make money on-chain.

The number of weekly active addresses has hovered around 150,000 in recent weeks, but the key metric is retention. Nearly 25% of weekly users are returning, which helps to sustain a stable core user base.

Sonic ranked among the top blockchains by net inflow in Q1 2025, with nearly $1.3 billion in assets flowing into the network. This places Sonic ahead of Solana and most other networks, with only Base drawing more capital.

Ecosystem Overview

The Sonic blockchain is designed to host a diverse and thriving ecosystem of dApps. Its full EVM compatibility enables developers to deploy applications that were originally built for the Ethereum network without any extra hassle. This feature lowers the barrier to entry for many developers and facilitates the migration of existing dApps to Sonic.

The Sonic blockchain ecosystem is primarily centered around DeFi, which drives most of the network’s activity and innovation. Sonic was designed to optimize for high-throughput, low-latency transactions, making it particularly well-suited for DeFi applications that require real-time performance and minimal fees.