In October 2024, Binance Labs announced an investment in a network within the Elastic Chain ecosystem, namely Sophon. So, what is Sophon? What are the highlights of this project on Elastic Chain?
What is Sophon?
Sophon is a layer-2 blockchain built on the Ethereum network. A key feature of Sophon is that it is one of the first platforms to utilize the Elastic Chain solution from the zkSync team. Accordingly, Sophon offers advantages including fast transaction speeds, strong security, and high scalability to networks using Elastic Chain.
Currently, Sophon has a program for running nodes to earn SOPH tokens. However, this opportunity is only available to individuals who participated in the node sale in May 2024.
Sophon’s Operational Model
Sophon is built using the zkStack toolkit from the zkSync team, therefore the Sophon network also employs the Zk Rollup scaling solution. Specifically, Zk Rollup allows for the aggregation of a large number of transactions into a single block on the network, creating an off-chain proof and submitting it to Ethereum for data verification.
Essentially, the advantage of Zk Rollup is that it helps the network save costs for users and increase transaction verification speed. Zk Rollup typically uses validity proofs, which are a proving system that demonstrates the correctness of a transaction without needing to reveal the data’s information. From this, Zk Rollup also helps the Sophon network achieve high security.
In the latest version of zkSync Era, the Zk Rollup scaling solution also enables Sophon’s EVM compatibility. Accordingly, developers can easily build dApps on this network.
Furthermore, the vision of zkSync Era’s Elastic Chain is similar to Optimism’s Superchain, which is to allow an ecosystem of layer-2 networks to connect and interact with each other. Users can use tokens on Sophon to buy/sell financial products on other networks. Currently, Elastic Chain is still under development and has not officially launched.
Further Reading: Advantages and Disadvantages of Zk Rollup Technology
Highlights of Sophon
Below are the highlights of Sophon:
- Backed by the zkSync Team: As mentioned above, Sophon is among the first projects to utilize the toolkit from zkSync Era. Even Sophon’s leadership team has previously worked at Matter Labs—the company behind zkSync Era. Accordingly, some believe Sophon receives backing from zkSync.
- EVM Compatibility: Although Sophon has not yet launched its mainnet and the testnet ecosystem still lacks many projects, its EVM compatibility allows developers to easily build dApps on it.
- Inheriting Functionalities from zkSync Era: Sophon possesses nearly all the features from zkSync Era, including low transaction fees and high network speed. Sophon can even implement Account Abstraction technology, thereby unlocking Paymaster—a feature that allows users to pay gas fees with various tokens instead of ETH.
- Airdrop Program: According to information from the project team, in addition to purchasing nodes to earn reward points and receive interest, users can begin staking assets such as ETH, stETH, etc., on the Sophon platform to earn reward points.
What is the SOPH Token?
SOPH Token Key Metrics
- Token Name: Sophon
- Ticker: SOPH
- Blockchain: Sophon
- Token Type: Utility, Governance
- Total Supply: Updating…
SOPH Token Allocation Ratio
Ecosystem Reserve: 30%
Sophon Foundation: 25%
Investor: 20%
Node Reward: 20%
Advisor: 5%
Sophon’s Team, Investors, and Partners
Project Team
It is known that one of Sophon’s Co-Founders is the X account @0xsebastiena. He is also a well-known figure in the crypto market, having co-founded the zkSync project. However, with the exception of @0xsebastiena, the other members of the Sophon team have not yet been publicly disclosed.
Investors and Partners
Sophon has undergone three funding rounds, raising over $70 million. Specifically:
- March 29, 2024: Sophon successfully raised $10 million from major investment funds such as The Spartan Group, HTX Ventures, OKX Ventures, etc.
- May 8, 2024: Sophon launched a Node sale to the crypto community and raised over $60 million. A Node sale is a method of selling nodes within the network. This method was previously used by Xai.
- October 3, 2024: Binance Labs announced an investment in Sophon. However, the investment amount has not been disclosed.
Sophon’s strategic partners are all major projects such as Impossible Finance, zkSync, Merit Circle, etc.
Some Similar Projects
- Unichain: A layer-2 blockchain developed by the Uniswap Labs team. Unichain’s purpose is to help users on Uniswap trade faster and cheaper than before.
- Hemi Network: Hemi Network is a layer-2 network focused on a modular blockchain architecture on Ethereum and Bitcoin.
