In a bold move, Sony has teamed up with Singapore-based Startale Labs to launch a new layer-2 network on the Ethereum blockchain, named Soneium, through their joint venture, Sony Block Solutions Labs.
Soneium, set to go live on a test network soon, will leverage optimistic rollup technology, enabling cheaper transactions on Ethereum-based networks. Built using the OP Stack from the Optimism blockchain ecosystem, Soneium will connect to other networks in the ecosystem via the “Superchain.”
In the latest crypto news today, the OP Stack is also used by U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase’s “Base” and the decentralized-identity project Worldcoin’s “World Chain.”
Startale Labs, led by CEO Sota Watanabe—who also co-founded the Astar Network—will now channel its resources solely into Soneium, shifting away from its previous project, Astar zkEVM. Astar zkEVM, which utilizes Polygon’s Chain Development Kit (CDK) and zero-knowledge technology, will integrate its assets and infrastructure with Soneium, as announced by Sony Block Solutions Labs.
Watanabe shared that the first year of Soneium will focus on onboarding Web3 enthusiasts, as it’s still early days for the general public.
And then phase two, within two years, we’re going to onboard Sony products, such as, Sony Bank, Sony Music, Sony Pictures and so on. So we would like to integrate Web3 and blockchain technology into Sony’s product.”
In three years, the goal is to have not just Sony but a broad range of enterprises and decentralized applications (dApps) running on Soneium.
