Sophon: A Next-Gen Consumer L2 Optimized for AI and Entertainment

Table of Contents

1. Introduction – Infrastructure is Ready, Now the Focus is on User Acquisition

2. Sophon’s Vision: Driving a Consumer Ecosystem with AI and Entertainment
2-1. Driving Web3 user adoption through gaming and entertainment
2-2. Agentic Economy: Unlocking an on-chain data economy with AI and DePIN

3. Sophon: An Advanced Modular ZK Infrastructure for Consumers
3-1. Maximized scalability and interoperability with ZKsync-based Elastic Chain
3-2. Enhanced security, lower costs, and decentralization with Avail DA-based Validium
3-3. Strengthened security and privacy-focused Web3 authentication with zkTLS

4. User-Centric $SOPH Tokenomics and Mainnet Development Plan

5. Conclusion—Can Sophon Drive the Mass Adoption of the On-Chain Consumer Market?

 

1. Introduction – Infrastructure is Ready, Now the Focus is on User Acquisition

Over the past few years, the blockchain industry has been dedicated to building infrastructure that meets both scalability and security requirements. Various innovations have emerged, including L2 solutions addressing Ethereum’s performance limitations, L1 chains offering significantly higher scalability than Ethereum, and modular blockchains designed for app-specific use cases. As a result, blockchain infrastructure has reached a level of maturity. However, mass adoption remains elusive.

The primary obstacles to widespread adoption are the 'technical barriers' and the 'speculation-driven ecosystem.' General users still perceive blockchain technology as overly complex, and many existing applications are focused on speculative elements, failing to encourage long-term user engagement and practical utility. Thus, for blockchain to truly integrate into mainstream usage, infrastructure advancements alone are insufficient. The key lies in developing intuitive applications that offer seamless and engaging user experiences.

Sophon was conceived with this challenge in mind. Rather than simply building another L1 blockchain, Sophon is positioning itself as an on-chain platform specializing in the entertainment and consumer sectors, ensuring that blockchain technology becomes an organic part of everyday digital interactions. The project strategically targets industries with substantial market traction and established user bases, such as gaming, ticketing, social platforms, online betting, and AI. By harnessing Web3’s advantages, Sophon aims to bridge the gap between blockchain technology and real-world consumer applications.

While many past blockchain projects have been primarily infrastructure-focused, Sophon takes a different approach by actively collaborating with entertainment-focused applications to enhance Web3’s practical usability in everyday life. The platform optimizes UX/UI to enable effortless onboarding—eliminating the need for separate wallet installations or complex authentication processes. Furthermore, features such as on-chain memberships, seamless payments, and reward mechanisms ensure that users can intuitively experience blockchain technology. In essence, Sophon is designed not for the speculation-driven 'Degen' culture but for the seamless integration of blockchain into real-world consumer experiences.

 

2. Sophon’s Vision: Driving a Consumer Ecosystem with AI and Entertainment

2-1. Driving Web3 user adoption through gaming and entertainment

Mass adoption of Web3 cannot be achieved through technological advancements alone. Faster transaction speeds or incremental improvements in ZK proof efficiency will not attract users if they fail to perceive tangible benefits. Recognizing this, Sophon has chosen a strategy centered around gaming and entertainment to drive user acquisition. Historical examples of internet adoption demonstrate that engaging and social content, rather than the mastery of complex technology, is what draws the masses. In blockchain, the key is to create immersive content and natural reward mechanisms so that users engage with the technology intuitively, rather than consciously analyzing its technical aspects.

Sophon’s approach is not about forming superficial partnerships to showcase an extensive list of partner logos. Instead, it focuses on curating and supporting teams capable of building sustainable user bases. For instance, blockchain gaming company Mirai Labs, which has launched titles like Pegaxy and Petopia, has already attracted over 270,000 wallets. Given its expertise in sustaining a real player base, Mirai Labs is an ideal partner. Through such collaborations, Sophon supports teams across technical, business, and marketing aspects to ensure seamless user experiences in blockchain-powered gaming. Partnerships with Rivalry (sports betting), CARV (gaming and AI data), and OPEN (on-chain ticketing) further exemplify efforts to create meaningful use cases for on-chain entertainment, sports, and events.

Instead of merely increasing the number of projects within its ecosystem, Sophon fosters deep collaborations to ensure projects successfully integrate into the market. It actively engages in designing user events, economic models, and on-chain/off-chain integrations. The presence of founding members and key executives from Web2 giants such as Motorola, Baidu, Electronic Arts, and Lenovo brings a unique edge in UX and content strategy—areas often overlooked by traditional blockchain projects. Ultimately, Sophon aims to establish an environment where blockchain is seamlessly embedded in enjoyable gaming and convenient ticketing services, rather than being seen as a standalone complex technology. Through this, it seeks to demonstrate that blockchain is not an inaccessible high-tech concept but rather a fundamental digital infrastructure anyone can leverage.

2-2. Agentic Economy: Unlocking an on-chain data economy with AI and DePIN

For the AI x Crypto ecosystem to move beyond mere speculative trading and into practical applications like AI-driven automation and large-scale data processing, it must address the centralization of GPU and cloud infrastructure dominated by industry giants such as AWS, Google, and Microsoft. Sophon aims to tackle this challenge by integrating Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) with an AI agent-driven ‘Agentic Economy.’ This initiative will decentralize computing resources on-chain and empower AI agents to enhance user experiences while engaging in independent economic activities, ultimately reducing AI-related costs and expanding data utilization.

Through the recently announced Sophon Intelligence Agency (SIA), Sophon has launched a $5 million initiative to foster AI agent applications in everyday life. Within this, the $1.5 million ‘Sophon Spark’ program, developed in collaboration with Cod3x, is set to roll out in Q1. Cod3x, known for its success in the Optimism Superfest campaign, specializes in automating DeFi transactions, liquidity provisioning, and chain interactions using natural language commands. Their concept of ‘Giga Swarm’ envisions AI agents collaboratively sharing information to enhance collective intelligence. Sophon plans to extend this AI framework beyond DeFi to sectors like gaming and social applications.

Additionally, Sophon is working with Aethir to secure decentralized GPU cloud resources. Through this partnership, it will offer up to $1 million in Compute Credits per project to lower AI agent operational costs. Several projects, including Anomaly (Nova AI), ScorePlay, and SPHNX, are already leveraging Sophon to develop AI-driven services across gaming, social platforms, prediction markets, and security—paving the way for a new on-chain data economy.

However, given the recent AI sector hype, many low-quality projects have emerged, leading to fragmented liquidity and overall market stagnation. A critical aspect to watch is how Sophon curates and manages its ecosystem to ensure genuine AI and blockchain synergies, rather than succumbing to speculative trends.

 

3. Sophon: An Advanced Modular ZK Infrastructure for Consumers

3-1. Maximized scalability and interoperability with ZKsync-based Elastic Chain

Sophon is an L2 project built on ZKsync’s Validium architecture, designed to cater to large-scale consumer markets in entertainment, social, and gaming sectors. Validium stores transaction data off-chain while ensuring integrity through ZK proofs, achieving both scalability and cost efficiency. This approach allows users to benefit from blockchain infrastructure without dealing with unnecessary complexity, enabling seamless handling of high traffic volumes.

Notably, Sophon integrates ZKsync 3.0’s Elastic Chain framework, which connects multiple ZK chains into a unified network. By leveraging ZK Gateway and ZK Router at the protocol level, it maintains security and efficiency while eliminating the need for users to be consciously aware of bridging processes. This ensures smooth asset and data transfers between chains, creating a seamless, integrated blockchain experience. For in-depth insights into Elastic Chain's structure and its advantages over other Layer 2 and Layer 3 solutions, refer to Xangle Research’s “2024: Shifting Focus to ZK Stack and L3 Technologies” and ZKsync’s official blog.

Sophon also employs Native Account Abstraction (NAA) to eliminate the distinction between EOAs (Externally Owned Accounts) and smart contract accounts. Through the Paymaster function, it allows gas fees to be covered for specific users or NFT holders. Furthermore, Sophon has developed a custom bridge that adopts Circle’s Bridged USDC standard, enhancing security and liquidity compared to conventional ERC-20 bridges. By leveraging Elastic Chain, these features enable users to interact with blockchain services effortlessly, reinforcing the vision that blockchain should be accessible to everyone—not just DeFi enthusiasts.

3-2. Enhanced security, lower costs, and decentralization with Avail DA-based Validium

Sophon’s adoption of ZK (Zero-Knowledge Proof)-based Validium architecture ensures data integrity while avoiding the need to store all transactions on-chain. This approach mitigates the gas fee surge caused by rollups, as only proof-of-results is recorded on-chain, delivering lower costs and higher performance. Its scalability allows businesses to expand with minimal cost increases, making it ideal for large-scale user bases.

However, ensuring the availability and integrity of off-chain data on-chain requires a mechanism that enables anyone to verify data existence and correctness. To address this, Sophon integrates Avail’s Data Availability (DA) solution. Avail uses Data Availability Sampling (DAS) to verify data consistency without requiring full downloads, enabling lightweight nodes to participate without heavy hardware requirements. This approach strengthens Validium’s security while maintaining decentralization and cost-efficiency, achieving an optimal balance between these three key factors.

3-3. Strengthened security and privacy-focused Web3 authentication with zkTLS

zkTLS (Zero-Knowledge Transport Layer Security) extends traditional TLS encryption by enabling on-chain verification of whether transmitted data originates from a legitimate source. For example, when checking an account balance on a banking website, zkTLS can cryptographically prove that the information indeed comes from the bank’s server—without revealing the exact balance or personal details. This ensures data provenance integrity, which conventional encryption alone cannot achieve, enhancing trust between Web3 and Web2 services.

Sophon is collaborating with partners like Reclaim to integrate zkTLS, enabling Web2-trusted credentials and transaction histories to be securely bridged into Web3 environments. With zkTLS, game rankings, financial credentials, and other verified data can be authenticated on-chain without exposing sensitive information. This has vast implications for KYC, finance, and social applications, ultimately reducing entry barriers for Web3 services and enhancing overall trust and security within the ecosystem.

 

4. User-Centric $SOPH Tokenomics and Mainnet Development Plan

Sophon officially launched its mainnet in December 2024, and the network is currently operating stably. The Token Generation Event (TGE) for its native token, $SOPH, is scheduled for the first half of 2025, marking the start of active token distribution and utilization. Of the total supply of 10 billion tokens, 20% will be allocated as node operation rewards, while the remainder will be distributed across ecosystem growth (30%), the foundation (25%), investors (20%), and advisors (5%). Instead of one-time airdrops, Sophon has opted for a sustained reward mechanism through the Sophon Points (SP) system. Initially, SPs were distributed on Ethereum L1 (Phase 1), and they have since expanded to the Sophon mainnet (Phase 2), incentivizing liquidity provision, Paymaster-based farming, and other network contributions to establish a fair allocation model.

The Sophon ecosystem is rapidly expanding across various sectors, including DeFi, GameFi, developer tools, on-chain events, and iGaming. Essential infrastructure such as bridges, node management (Guardian), and explorers has already been established. Additionally, projects like SyncSwap, The Farm, and Noon in DeFi, GAMP, Animix, and Brutal Knights in gaming, Safe, Nova, and Aethir in developer tools, and Lé Poker and Rivalry in iGaming and on-chain events are actively utilizing the Sophon network.

https://dune.com/sohwak_archive/sophon-node-sales

From a network operations perspective, Sophon has significantly lowered validation barriers through the Sophon Guardians system and Avail DA-supported light nodes. The Guardian membership system employs NFT-based delegation, while the light nodes verify network integrity through sampling without requiring full data downloads, allowing anyone to participate in validation without significant hardware requirements. Sophon nodes were sold through both whitelist and public sales, with a total of 120,000 nodes generating approximately $60 million in revenue. To foster a thriving developer ecosystem, Sophon provides SDKs and APIs to developers, enabling seamless and rapid Web3 application development and further lowering the onboarding barriers to blockchain applications.

 

5. Conclusion—Can Sophon Drive the Mass Adoption of the On-Chain Consumer Market?

Sophon is not merely introducing another chain but aims to establish itself as an on-chain platform targeting the entertainment and consumer sectors. By leveraging ZKsync-based Elastic Chain technology for scalability and interoperability, Avail-powered Validium for cost efficiency and security, and Native Account Abstraction (NAA) and Paymaster functionalities for improved user experience, Sophon is strategically positioned for growth. Its strong alignment with high-interest sectors such as gaming, AI, DePIN, betting, and social applications ensures that both infrastructure and real-world applications evolve together.

However, Sophon has yet to fully validate its business model, and it remains uncertain how effectively blockchain can be integrated into the entertainment and gaming industries. Given that content is a crucial determinant of market success in these sectors, the key question is whether Sophon can secure a meaningful user base and build a sustainable ecosystem through strong partnerships and high-quality content. The success of its flagship partners—such as Mirai Labs, Rivalry, and AI/DePIN projects—will be a decisive factor in Sophon’s growth trajectory.

Nevertheless, as the Web3 trend shifts away from pure infrastructure advancements toward delivering tangible user experiences, Sophon's strengths in Elastic Chain interoperability, ZK technology, Validium architecture, and user-friendly features like Paymaster and NAA stand out as compelling advantages. If $SOPH tokenomics successfully drive real user engagement over the long term, Sophon has the potential to lead the mass adoption of on-chain consumer markets. The industry no longer needs yet another slightly modified blockchain—it needs a chain that provides real, usable services for everyday users.