Deconstructing the Sonic ecosystem: from origin to future, the ultimate unfolding of the ecosystem blueprint

Author: Zephyr

Introduction: The Ultimate Deconstruction of the Sonic Ecosystem

Sonic is a high-performance Layer-1 blockchain that has re-emerged in the market with a throughput of 10,000 TPS and EVM compatibility. The return of @AndreCronjeTech, along with the high-profile airdrop of 200 million $S, has directly ignited the enthusiasm within the community. After researching the articles of @0xAlexon, @Foxi_xyz, @DaPangDunCrypto, @y_cryptoanalyst, @CyberPhilos, @rich_adul and other experts, integrating my own experiences, I have compiled a comprehensive and systematic analysis.

This article will start from the technical origin of Fantom, analyze the thriving ecosystem driven by assets such as $S and $Shadow, disassemble the Alpha opportunities of the Sonic ecosystem, unfold the full picture of Sonic and the most hardcore insights in the circle, help everyone understand the past, present, and future potential of Sonic!

( Find CA directly jump to II. And be sure to read V.)

I. Origin Deconstruction

Sonic did not come out of thin air. This story dates back to the time of Fantom. In 2018, Fantom emerged out of nowhere, aiming to do something different with the Lachesis consensus and DAG technology.

Fantom uses ve(3,3) model to create the DeFi Flywheel, almost playing with fire, which also lays the foundation for later x(3,3). At that time, @AndreCronjeTech, the DeFi godfather, created $YFI in 2020, skyrocketing from 6 dollars to 95,000 dollars, a 2900x increase. In 2021, he launched $FTM, a $8 billion airdrop, which surged 180 times, pushing TVL to 7 billion dollars. Old OGs who have tried Fantom’s testnet all say the interaction is very smooth, but unfortunately, it was suffocated by Solana and Avalanche later on. Misfortunes never come singly, the Multichain cross-chain bridge collapsed, and the TVL dropped to 90 million dollars. The bear market came, and in 2022, @AndreCronjeTech announced his retreat, and the community felt it was going to cool down.

Until 2023, @AndreCronjeTech returned, and in 2024, he launched the Sonic mainnet with Fantom’s technological upgrade. It went live on December 18th, and in January, it was listed on major exchanges. $S tripled in value in half a month, and TVL surged by 500% to $730 million in just one month. @0xAlexon mentioned in October last year that this was not just a superficial change, but a fundamental upgrade, and it proved to be true. Those days were filled with cries of ‘Fantom reborn’ on X, with overwhelming enthusiasm and attracting a wave of attention. Sonic, as the cornerstone, was hammered out by @AndreCronjeTech with technical zeal.

Not only that, but also with the blessing of @danielesesta, the god of cycles. In 2021, he worked hard on Fantom, bringing TVL from $5 million to over $6 billion with Popsicle Finance and Solid Swap, in collaboration with @AndreCronjeTech. Popsicle’s cross-chain liquidity optimization and Solid Swap’s ve(3,3) model directly drove the ecological flywheel, setting a precedent for Sonic’s x(3,3). He shouted ‘Fantom is my starting point’ on X, and now with the innovation of WAGMI and HeyAnon, he has injected new vitality into the Sonic ecosystem.

As of today, @SonicLabs’ TVL still remains at around 700 million US dollars, skyrocketing from 27 million at the beginning of the year to this level. I think everyone should think carefully about whether Sonic’s ecological hardcore rise is worth getting involved in.

II. Ecological Anatomy

First of all, if you want to quickly understand the new project and find official endorsements, please be sure to pay attention to the official team members. You can find the changed account handle in the affiliated accounts on the homepage of @SonicLabs. Also, I found that @insider_Sonic and @Sonichub_ will also integrate some high-quality projects and information, everyone can also pay attention to them. BTW, the ecological anatomy part is the longest, so please be patient when reading!

Tweet link

According to the list of Dapps that can earn AP officially released by @SonicLabs and the projects currently popular in the ecosystem, this section will be divided into Spot Dex, Lending and Yield, GameFi, Meme, and NFT for analysis.

Other projects in the ecosystem can be accessed to view. This website also allows you to check your Points, and you can click the top right corner to filter projects that can earn AP.

Spot Dex

Based on the CLM (Concentrated Liquidity Pool Model), as of today, TVL has locked more than $100 million, accounting for one-seventh of Sonic’s total TVL, with accumulated trading fees exceeding $9 million. Its token $SHADOW saw a 33x increase within 20 days of launch, with a circulating market cap of around $26 million. The core mechanism adopts the x(3,3) model, where users stake $SHADOW to generate Shadow, gaining governance voting rights and trading fee dividends, with peak APR reaching 5500%. $x33, as the liquidity staking token, currently stabilizes at around 80% of $SHADOW’s price. Through instant withdrawal fee structure and automatic compounding design, it ensures the stability of holding value. The withdrawal mechanism allows for $x33 minting transactions, with an early redemption penalty of 50%, incentivizing long-term participation. As of the end of February, daily trading volume has stabilized at over $50 million.

@MetropolisDEX is based on the DLMM (Dynamic Liquidity Mining Model). As of today, the TVL is locked at $10.42 million, with accumulated trading fees reaching $500,000. The circulating market value of its token $METRO is $10.9 million, with a FDV as high as $220 million. Users can stake $METRO to obtain voting rights and APR rewards, with a lock-up period starting from 90 days and a peak APR of around 30%. The core mechanism relies on segmented price ranges (Bins) to achieve near-zero slippage trading, dynamically adjusting fees to combat impermanent loss, supporting one-sided liquidity injection. LPs can choose to deposit assets in a simple mode or adjust price ranges and allocation shapes (equal parts, curves, Bid-Ask) in advanced mode. As of the end of February, the daily trading volume is approximately $1.5 million.

@SwapXfi, based on the V4 AMM (Algebra Finance V4 Automated Market Maker) model, as of today, TVL has locked in 55.59 million US dollars. Its token $SWPx has a circulating market value of 9.1 million US dollars, with a 24-hour trading volume of 1.33 million US dollars. The WBTC/scBTC pool has seen a 58.7% increase in APR after going live, with a peak APR exceeding 80%. The core mechanism achieves low slippage trading through V4 AMM, optimizes fund efficiency through concentrated liquidity pools and automated liquidity management, and supports single-sided token deposits (ICHI ALM) and multiple pool types (Classic Volatile, Stable, CLAMM). Users staking $SWPx can receive voting rights and rewards, and the lock-up incentive adopts the VE(3,3) model. As of the end of February, the average daily trading volume is approximately 2 million US dollars.

Based on GMI (multi-pool model), as of today, TVL is 17.5 million US dollars. Its token $WAGMI has a circulating market value of 33 million US dollars, a 24-hour trading volume of 0.95 million US dollars, and has risen by over 95% since its launch, with a peak APR of about 50%. The core mechanism optimizes liquidity through the multi-layer pool structure of GMI, nesting multiple V3 sub-pools, automatically rebalancing market fluctuations, allowing LP to deposit assets unilaterally, and distributing profits according to the proportion of $WAGMI holdings, with 80% of the additional tokens used to incentivize leveraged trading and GMI pools. Users can pledge $WAGMI to generate sWAGMI, obtain 20% protocol fee dividends, and the lock-up period is flexible, with the current lock-up ratio exceeding 60%. As of the end of February, the average daily trading volume is about 3 million US dollars.

Lending and Yield

@SiloFinance based on the isolated lending model, as of today, the TVL is as high as $200 million, making it the protocol with the highest TVL on the Sonic network, accounting for nearly one-third of the total TVL. The core mechanism provides high leverage through isolated pools, each pool operates independently, limiting the risk of single asset spreading. Users can deposit stablecoins such as $S or $ScUSD for leveraged borrowing to amplify profits. Depositing $ScUSD earns an additional 18x SonicPoint score, while USDE deposits earn a 12% APR. The TVL is significantly inflated, the author estimates that excluding the TVL brought in by leveraged borrowing, the actual TVL may be around $20 million, which is about one-tenth of the current figure. However, this protocol is very suitable for players who want to earn high Points, as leveraged borrowing essentially involves taking on interest rate differentials in exchange for Points.

@eulerfinance Users deposit assets (such as scETH, stS, scUSD, wstkscUSD, etc.) to earn interest, or borrow other tokens by collateralizing these assets. It supports looping strategies that are available from day one, allowing users to maximize their returns through repeated borrowing and depositing. In short, it is a one-click looping loan platform, but the optimization is poorly done and not recommended. For equivalent needs, @SiloFinance can be used manually to address them.

@OriginProtocol and @beets_fi respectively stake $S to get $OS, with 12% APR, and stake $S to get $Sts, with 4.75% APR. Both tokens have full liquidity, can be seamlessly used in DeFi to access lending markets, liquidity pools, etc. Stopping staking income, but the ratio with $S is not stable at 1:1. When using these two tokens in other protocols, one must be aware of the liquidation risk.

@Rings_Protocol, by creating meta-assets (e.g., $ScUSD, $ScETH, $ScBTC) pegged to USD, Ethereum, and Bitcoin, allowing users to participate in yield farming strategies managed by Veda Labs with stablecoins and the like as collateral, generating high yields, while providing staking passive income, fixed interest rate, and yield leverage options. The meta-assets generated on the platform have Sonic points bonuses, especially $ScUSD.

The inspiration comes from Tomb Finance, and the emissions, bonds, and supplies are automatically optimized every 6 hours by artificial intelligence @GodSonic_AI, pursuing an emotionless ecological balance. Its token system includes $HOG (anchored), $gHOG (governance/reward), and $bHOG (bonds). Currently, the TVL ranks among the top ten in Sonic, and $gHOG is planned to be launched next week. ( looks pretty good, but in fact, this ponzi is not perfect, see details in V.)

By tokenizing the future income of assets into Principal Tokens (PTs, ownership of principal) and Yield Tokens (YTs, future income), @spectra_finance allows users to sell income in advance or lock in principal. PTs can lock in a fixed interest rate to hedge against volatility, while YTs are used for speculation or monetization of future income; the platform incorporates an automated market maker (AMM) supporting YTs trading, allowing users to speculate on yield and receive profit distribution at the end of each period; it is designed without permission for anyone to create income pools based on ERC-4626 tokens, and profits cannot be withdrawn in advance, enhancing composability with other protocols. (Difficult to use, easy to confuse people, it is recommended to start with a small amount of capital, carefully read the project documentation)

@eggsonSonic The goal is to build $EGGS as a reserve currency, similar to OHM in the previous cycle. Users can mint $EGGS by depositing $S, redeem $EGGS for $S, borrow $S and use leverage for recycling. 138.6 billion $EGGS have been burned, $S borrowed is $662,800, TVL is $73.95 million.

@HeyAnonai is an AI-driven DeFi protocol that simplifies DeFi interactions on Sonic through conversational AI and real-time data aggregation. Users can interact with HeyAnon in natural language to perform complex DeFi operations such as bridging, swapping, staking, and borrowing. The developer is the well-known @danielesesta, and $Anon can be purchased on popular public chains.

GameFi

@sacra_fi started in April 2022, after three rounds of BETA testing, officially launched in Q2 of 24, and collaborated with @SonicLabs to launch a reward plan of 50w $S. For specific details, you can watch the video from teacher @rich_adul. $SA reached a high of 24U and is now down to around 0.08U.

@FateAdventure Previously, @AndreCronjeTech’s avatar was one of the characters in the game, receiving investment from @SonicLabs’ seed round. It’s like a beloved son. This is a blockchain game with a clear Play-to-Earn (P2E) element. Players consume and earn $FA through missions, battles, or NFTs. The highest price of $FA reached 2U, and the current price is 0.76U.

Meme

Risk Warning: @AndreCronjeTech publicly expressed disgust for Meme coins

@GOGLZ_Sonic leading Meme, goggle concept, but almost flipped several times.

@TinHat_Cat Conspiracy cat, the currency price trend is very strange, and at the same time, the NFT floor has been consistently high and the trading volume is stable, indeed Cabal.

@derpedewdz Derp is the token corresponding to NFT, holding NFT can receive and airdrop for free. Uppies is a project used by the Derp community to participate in Meme contests.

The tokens issued by @MIMonSonic on @wagmicom were airdropped to Dero holders a few days ago, worth over 10U, with a wizard concept.

@PassThe_JOINT Smoke-404 concept was previously selling blind boxes in the NFT market. When opened, tokens within a certain range of quantities are randomly obtained. Once listed, they were quickly sold out, but the market value has remained around 200k in the long term.

@haunted_ice @Memetoona Both of these have been purchased by @danielesesta using @HeyAnonai and are still at a very low market value stage.

NFT

The NFT trading market of Sonic Chain is:

As a blue-chip NFT in the Sonic ecosystem, official team members hold and change their avatars. @AndreCronjeTech also changed to a derp avatar a few days ago. The status of the dragon head NFT is unquestionable, with a total of 2,000. As far as I know, many group members hold dozens of them, and the airdrops to holders are continuous. The highest airdrop amount even exceeds 1w USD. Projects are constantly giving WL directly to derp holders. In short, it is recommended that players deeply involved in the Sonic ecosystem hold at least one NFT, which is an OG identity verification and a kind of community culture. (Haven’t you seen that I am also a Derp?)

@MetropolisDEX, as one of the NFTs with high trading volume and floor price, was initially issued for Fairlaunch. Holders can obtain quotas to purchase tokens based on the amount held, which can be stacked. The initial Metro NFTs were obtained by completing simple tasks. Currently, the floor price is in the 1400s. The official team continues to empower NFTs, and there may be new airdrop opportunities in the future, as well as whitelist permissions for other projects.

@LazyBearSonic is a fair Mint NFT, the Mint cost is less than 1s, enter DC to get WL, and Mint takes four hours to complete, the highest floor is close to 500s, the current floor is 300s, many smart group members and early participants in the ecosystem saw the hidden opportunities here, multiple Mint and floor sweeping, with profits ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands of S.

III. Airdrop Opportunities

@SonicLabs revealed that they are airdropping 200 million $S. Teacher Pangdun’s article provides a detailed analysis of the airdrop, so I won’t elaborate on that. Here, we will only discuss how to maximize profits.

Sonic airdrop analysis

For a user who is airdropping, is there an opportunity for Sonic?

Of course!..

I used the airdrop data from @JupiterExchange here as a reference, because the official algorithm and ranking of Points have not been disclosed. Therefore, the practical method and strategy have not yet been formed. If there is relevant data published in the future, I will post it for everyone to refer to.

@JupiterExchange divides the trading addresses into eight levels, and calculates that the airdrop amounts of the final seven and eighth levels account for 5% of the trading volume, the sixth level accounts for 2%, and the fifth level accounts for 1%. The higher the level, the lower the airdrop amount, with the first level airdrop amount only accounting for 0.2% of the trading volume. This reflects that the higher the trading volume, the less the airdrop amount, instead, the proportion of airdrop decreases with the increase in trading volume. In other words, finding a value close to the level edge, evenly distributing the trading volume to multiple addresses will result in a much higher airdrop value. However, due to the lack of relevant public data, even the underlying algorithm of Points has not been disclosed, and ap is not yet displayed on the dashboard. But in fact, the official has hidden a small surprise. On @ShadowOnSonic’s dashboard, you can see the ranking of points. This data can be used as a simple reference. For example, 51w points rank at 1.4w, so far, the multi-address strategy ensures that each address is around 2w in rank. The main addresses can enter the top 1w or 5k in rank, which can prevent being assigned to a too high level, lowering the weight of points in the airdrop.

Of course, this is just a reference I’m providing, it’s just my personal imagination. The opportunity for us small capital in the Sonic ecosystem lies in exploring early alpha, but as a DeFi chain, the scores on Sonic can often be very high, showing us a possibility of getting rich.

IV. Future Blueprint

The ultimate vision of Sonic for the previous paragraph Grok:

Sonic this chain, the future is not a small fuss, it is going to make a big deal.

@AndreCronjeTech’s technical spirit is still burning. A 2900x increase for $YFI and a 180x increase for $FTM are just the appetizers. He has a big move on Sonic. Sonic’s mainnet TPS ranks first in the entire chain, with hardcore upgrades to FVM (Fantom Virtual Machine) and DB (LiveDB+ArchiveDB) directly boosting performance,

Sonic has created an L1.5, dividing the full node into Validator and Archive Node, and going into battle lightly. With this technological foundation, Sonic can make a breakthrough in DeFi and GameFi, and the industry is waiting for it to overturn some slow chains. Keeping an eye on Sonic gateway, the cross-chain bridge is ridiculously fast, competing with Ethereum for business, and revitalizing assets such as stETH and wBTC with $S, with TVL set to skyrocket soon.

On the ecological front, $Shadow and Metropolis are just the appetizers. Sonic’s high-performance foundation can turn the DEX around, x(3,3), and DLMM-like gameplay will become more and more fierce. $Shadow’s TVL is over 1.5 billion dollars, and Metropolis’s single-sided pool efficiency is reaching its peak. In the future, more hardcore projects will emerge. With 140 million dollars of incentives poured in, a 200 million $S airdrop will land in June, and developers need to come in droves. Sonic Labs is also holding 200 million $S of the Innovator Fund, and AAA-level projects are not just a dream. I guess AC is holding back more than just these. The pile of black technology (money market, options, leverage) he mentioned in his self-narrative will sooner or later land on Sonic, and the ecosystem will explode.

On the community side, Sonic Points and Gems are flying high. Snatching airdrops is a surefire way to profit PP, holding LP to get AP, and mining heads is high risk and high return. Just play a hand and double your income. In the future, Sonic will bind users and developers together, and Points and Gems are not just rewards, but the engine that drives the ecosystem.

Sonic needs to differentiate itself through Killer Dapp, and the community needs to engage more deeply. LP, staking, NFT all come to the table. With a turn of the flywheel, Sonic can absorb the liquidity of other chains.

This is not over yet, Sonic’s ambition is not just L1. AC has been holding back 8 years of technical design in the self-narrative, foreign exchange AMM, leveraged spot, option mining, Sonic gateway is upgraded again, cross-chain brings in Ethereum’s TVL, $S hard currency status is set in stone.

Sonic’s high performance can turn the tide. In the future, Sonic will not only do DeFi, but also have to embrace GameFi, NFT, and smash a whole new world. The whole industry is watching. If Sonic turns the tide, it can completely revolutionize the entire Web3.

V. Practical Deconstruction

Just from my personal point of view, @SonicLabs is what @CyerPhilos mentioned, which has the opportunity to grow slowly from a very small market value or to have early low-cost airdrop opportunities, with real value and application or community, and to invest early in the ecological development together.

Looking back, the Mint price of Derp NFT in the 100s has already reached 2000s, holding Derp NFT also received an airdrop of over $xshadow worth more than ten thousand dollars, and various project parties are still airdropping to Derp holders until now. I believe that there will only be more in the future. A few days ago, the free Mint LazyBear could get white by just entering the dc and filling out the form, reaching nearly 500s at the peak. Even the Metro NFT, which is given away for completing tasks, is now over 1000s. I believe the Sonic ecosystem is still in its early stages, with too many alpha opportunities here. I am willing to follow the teachers to build together!

Recommended reading: Why do I judge that SONIC is still in the early stage?

Recommended reading: Reasons for the Bullish Sonic ecosystem

So how should retail investors participate in the Sonic ecosystem?

First of all, the most important thing on the chain is security. There are all kinds of reasons for the loss and theft of funds. The infrastructure on Sonic is not perfect. Buying unofficially endorsed tokens cannot guarantee the loss of contract permissions. The author, not talented, bought a Piyao coin ($Sonicxbt) once, and saw it posted by a group member at that time, and the market value was not high. I also thought of the previous bnbxbt, so I bought more than 800 s without hesitation, and successfully contributed to the performance of the scammer.

When participating in various protocols on the chain, you should also be cautious. Start with a small amount of funds to run through the process and principles. Many DeFi projects do not advocate for quick in and out, so doing so may incur slippage or taxes, especially on some staking platforms. Here, let’s talk about @spectra_finance, which is quite tricky. It’s confusing to deposit scu and redeem it into currencies like wstkscu, sw-wstksc, etc. Moreover, the official conversion entrance is not clear, requiring you to patiently search or slowly read through those lengthy documents. That’s why it’s important for everyone to experiment with small funds, as experiencing such situations can be very frustrating.

Small retail investors who want to become future OGs or whales may find that playing these DeFi games is not very cost-effective. Therefore, we must seek alpha opportunities in the ecosystem and constantly grow our funds. Therefore, investing in new projects is essential, but we also need to be cautious and carefully evaluate the risk of project abandonment while reading the documentation for each project (if you’re too lazy to read, just don’t read it. Follow me, and I will post high-quality new projects).

Taking the recent example of @HandofGodSonic, the first cycle involved everyone depositing and mining $hOG together, but the token price was hyped to thousands of dollars at the beginning. When the project started distributing tokens, the price plummeted. According to official statements, $hOG is soft-pegged to $os, meaning that the price of $hOG will eventually return to around 1 dollar. At that time, I warned about the risks in the group I was in, stating that the price of $hOG had always been artificially high, and it was better to mine and sell. Moreover, the official platform imposed a 1% tax on deposits. Before the token distribution began, due to the high price of $hOG, the project’s annual percentage rate (APR) soared to hundreds of thousands of points on a daily basis. It gradually decreased during distribution, eventually dropping to one-thousandth for some trading pairs, meaning it would take ten days of mining just to break even. There were even cases of community members adding to LP trading pairs, making it impossible to withdraw LP, effectively locking it up. Looking back, one could speculate a conspiracy: the project team set up trading pairs for os\hOG deposits with no tax, the highest daily yield, and the top-performing projects were all collaborations with the official platform. $os was used in trading pairs, and $Swpx was the collaborated Dex. These projects distributed almost 30,000 $hOG daily at the highest, and at least 10,000 at the lowest, while the other lower-tier pairs had only 2,000.

So be sure to carefully read the Document for new projects, as a lack of information can often determine many things.