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Sony has announced its Ethereum L2 blockchain, which will vitalize Web3 experiences in the entertainment, gaming, and finance sectors.
Sony Group revealed its $3.5 million investment in Singapore’s Web3 incubator Startale Labs, bearing the fruit of a new blockchain. Soneium is a Layer-2 blockchain based on Ethereum, which could pump some enthusiasm back into Web3 technology, especially after AI applications stole its limelight entirely.?
Soneium is created by Sony Block Solutions Labs,?a joint venture between Sony Network Communications Labs and Startale Labs. Sony owns 90% of the partnership, which was announced in September 2023 to build “killer Web3 use cases” by leveraging Startale’s expertise in blockchain and Sony’s authority in the electronics, gaming, entertainment, imagining, and finances sectors.?
How Will Soneium Work?
Sony envisions Soneium as a public blockchain with an open network that anyone can join. It plans to open a test network for developers to leverage and create application layers on top to enable Web3 games, NFT marketplaces, and other entertainment-related services. With Sony’s heritage in the entertainment and gaming sectors, it might as well have some success with applications that Meta has been unable to crack.?
In the future, Sony will make the main network publicly available, allowing users to access applications built on top of Soneium more liberally. Sony also plans to add DeFi aspects to the blockchain, incorporating its subsidiary crypto trading service, S.BLOX. That could be a major boost to the currently lackluster crypto-based transactions in the metaverse and for in-game add-ons. Sony’s own PlayStation Network is highly likely to benefit with this development, and the expansion of the PS VR2 to Windows is already a step in the right direction.?
Sony reveals the blockchain will be built on Optimism Foundation’s OP Stack, a “zero-knowledge” platform that enables developers with means to develop their networks linked to the “superchain.”?
Notably, Startale Labs CEO and Sony Block Solutions Labs director, Sota Watanabe, is also known as the cofounder of Astar Network, a blockchain contract solution called Astar zkEVM that leverages Polygon’s Chain Development Kit (CDK), a competitor to OP Stack. Following today’s announcement, Astar zkEVM will be integrated within Soneium, and the company plans to allow users and developers to migrate all assets to Soneium.?
