Roses are red. Sonic is blue. If you want 10k TPS, Sonic is for you! In view of Sonic’s imminent mainnet upgrade, we’re here to look into what this upgrade brings to Fantom - from a technical and ecosystem-focused perspective.

A blast from the past

Anyone who was in the DeFi space in 2022 would know Fantom as a booming hub for crypto degens. Fantom was one of the top performing ecosystems, together with other chains in the “FOAN ($FTM, $ONE, $ATOM, $NEAR) trade”. Fantom hit a peak of US$8b in Total Value Locked (TVL) in March 2022. Much of Fantom’s success is owed to Andre Cronje, who is widely regarded as the Godfather of DeFi due to his contributions. However, in March 2022, Cronje and his partner, Anton Nell, announced that they “are closing the chapter of contributing to DeFi/crypto.” This was one of the unfortunate events that triggered a decline in the Fantom ecosystem. However, just as hope seemed lost, Cronje returned to the fray as the Chief Technology Officer of Sonic Labs.

Sonic Upgrade

The Sonic upgrade introduces significant improvements to Fantom, which was already providing high throughput. Sonic is expected to handle over ~2,000 Transactions Per Second (TPS) at ~1-second finality, which is a drastic improvement from before. ERC-20 token transfers are also possible at a whopping ~10,000 TPS. This leap in performance is achieved through techniques like super instructions and caching, which allow for more efficient execution of smart contracts. Another critical component of the upgrade is the Carmen database. It features live pruning, which allows validators to discard outdated data without going offline, cutting storage requirements by up to 90%. 

These technical improvements serve to scale Sonic’s network, opening up possibilities for the hosting of  high-frequency decentralised applications (dApps) as well as the lowering of transaction costs.

Sonic Boom - Sonic Bounty Program
To bootstrap and breathe new life into the Sonic ecosystem, Sonic has introduced SONIC BOOM, a bounty program, featuring Sonic Gems for the 190,500,000 $S airdrop. Sonic Gems are airdrop points that can be earned by users, with 37.5% of the total airdrop allocated to holders of Gems.

More critically, SONIC BOOM is offering 30 winning projects a bounty of Gems for developing and on Sonic. These Gems can be utilised by project teams as incentives to onboard users onto their dApps. Particularly, the SONIC BOOM developer bounty is applicable to projects of several verticals. 

Additionally, SONIC BOOM has allocated additional rewards to projects who also incorporate the following, namely by participating in Sonic’s Gas Monetization program, using SAFE’s tools, or by exclusively deploying on Sonic. Devs should refer to Sonic’s announcement for the full set of details, including the application process as well as the application deadlines.

What's cooking in Sonic right now?
Leading the charge towards Sonic’s comeback are the Fantom OGs such as Beethoven and Spookyswap. However, SONIC BOOM hopes to onboard new devs, users and communities for everyone to enjoy the speedy new chain together.

We think that SONIC BOOM presents a great opportunity for developers and users alike. Time will tell if Fantom’s comeback (this time as Sonic) will become a reality. To keep updated with the Sonic ecosystem, feel free to refer to our Sonic Ecosystem twitter list.

Thank you for reading!