For those of you who were active in 2021, I’m sure you’ve heard the words “scalability trilemma” at least 300 times.
It was the go-to sales pitch for any new chain launching at the time.
By constantly shoving the scalability trilemma notion down our throats, so many different scaling solutions were launched. This has ultimately given birth to a layer-2 [L2] dilemma.
So, what is this dilemma I’m talking about?
Well, for so long, we have been uttering the phrases “the masses are coming,” “once the UX gets better, we will onboard the masses,” and “retail is here.”
No matter how many different ways we say this, the fact is that non-crypto native participants tend to come for a short stint and then get burned in our ponzi games, never to return.
The L2 dilemma plays into this notion.
We have 50+ L2s, and they all focus on the same things. The technicals.
Things like which type of rollup they are and what type of proofs they use. Secondly, they all support and push applications that only target a crypto-native user base. Lastly, with so many chains having very similar applications, all you get is fragmentation of users and liquidity across the ecosystem.
This is far from ideal.
If we’re being real, the majority of people (outside of crypto) do not care about the tech; they just want to use entertaining and useful things. Supporting primarily speculation-driven applications that are unsustainable is NOT an example of something useful and entertaining.
Therefore, when we’re talking “for the masses,” the criteria are simple. A clean and simple UX is a necessity, but beyond that, it must either be entertaining for a consumer or should make their life better.
We’re talking about a new wave of crypto applications that use the powerful decentralized infrastructure built to completely reshape online experiences for everyone.
There is no network better suited to grab the mindshare of the masses than Sophon.
Allow me to elaborate.
Current landscape
Let’s put things into perspective with some numbers:
At the time of writing, we have 52 rollups and 67 different Validiums and Optimiums. If we take a closer look at the applications across these various scaling solutions, then across the top 100 decentralized exchanges [DEXes], around 50 of them are on these EVM-based scaling solutions.
Similarly, 51 out of the top 100 lending markets are on these scaling solutions, and 75 of the top 100 yield-based products are from the said EVM chains.
I can go on and on for many different sectors, but I think you get the point. Across the multitude of L2s, you are essentially getting the same product with different branding.
So what does this mean?
The result of this dilution, by forking, is that on so many different chains, each subsequent pool that is created takes a certain amount of liquidity from a pool elsewhere. Each new yield farm created takes users away from a protocol elsewhere, and the cycle continues.
Ultimately, you are left with a massive fragmentation of users and liquidity, which leaves the entire ecosystem in tatters.
Now, we have to remember that crypto is the purest form of a free market. Everyone is free to build whatever they want. If hundreds of versions of the same product across different chains is the natural state of affairs, then so be it.
However, it also points to a broader trend in the industry: too much focus on tech and too little on helping the average consumer.
Think about it this way — say you’re having a chat with your normie friends. Would they be more excited by you talking their ear off about the differences between ZK rollups and optimistic rollups, or would they be more excited if you told them about an entertaining app built on this technology?
From an infrastructural standpoint, crypto is very powerful because it can be the value layer of the Internet.
So far, the Internet is merely a social layer that people use for entertainment and connecting with like-minded people around the world. However, there is no real digital-native monetary layer that fosters true ownership.
Crypto enables this.
The pivot that the industry now needs to make is to abstract away the technical jargon from the end user and simply show them a product that will either benefit them or be an improvement from the web2 incumbents.
Sophon does exactly that.
How Sophon is spearheading consumer crypto
If you haven’t read our previous article on Sophon, I highly recommend you check it out before diving further into this one.
The general gist is that Sophon is a Validium that will be part of ZKsync’s Elastic Chain.
Sophon aims to take the crypto industry beyond the shackles of nativity and use powerful tech, i.e. blockchains, to help build applications that make on-chain experiences more entertaining.
This is done by shifting focus from technical and speculation-driven products to products that are actually demanded by a wider consumer base.
The term consumer crypto itself is very broad. It is essentially the idea that we need to start treating users as consumers rather than treating the users as a product that protocols farm for TVL numbers.
This means creating applications that improve not only on-chain experiences, but also online experiences as a whole.
Examples of consumer crypto products include anything related to entertainment and value creation for a wider audience. This includes gaming, streaming, content creation, gambling, ticketing, AI, and so on.
Let's analyze the release of a typical L2 or L1 to better understand why this ‘consumer-first’ approach is so important.
It starts by building hype on Twitter and then moving that attention to Discord and Telegram to create a more engaged community of crypto natives. Then, there is typically a testnet that these users farm in the hopes of an airdrop.
Eventually, the chain will launch with a bunch of partner projects, which typically include DEXes, money markets, yield products, NFT marketplaces, and maybe a gaming project. However, the bulk of the focus tends to be DeFi and NFTs.
The mainnet launch is often coupled with a sizable incentive program. This could be either direct token incentives or a points program with an eventual airdrop.
The chain's builders simply try to drive up usage and volume numbers to show their investors and ultimately justify their ridiculously bloated FDVs. Hence, they support as many DeFi projects as possible in the hope that the incentives will get them their desired numbers.
The result of this is essentially a short-term gain, long-term slow bleed to death.
Why? If you incentivize speculation-driven products, you will only attract speculators. Speculators are mercenaries. They will stay as long as they can make money and move on to the next chain offering the same thing but with fresh incentives.
This is why, beyond two or three L2s, the majority of them lose user mindshare after their initial launch hype.
With Sophon, they're focusing on products that users actually want. However, partnering with everyone possible does not make sense for a consumer crypto-focused approach because it leads to unnecessary fragmentation of users, liquidity, and attention.
Instead, the focus is on curation.
It’s quality over quantity. Working with fewer teams means stronger relationships and more attention to the product itself. This will ultimately lead to the creation of better applications on Sophon.
I think this image perfectly represents Sophon’s approach.
Eventually, by working with a few really good projects that are focused on creating entertaining and engaging on-chain experiences, it will be much easier to reach a wider audience — an audience that is made up of both crypto-natives and regular Internet users.
It is basically using the power of crypto technology and packaging it in products where the end-user benefits without really knowing too much about the underlying technology.
We believe this is the next logical step for where the industry is headed, and Sophon is at the forefront.
Why Sophon is the chain for the masses
We gave you the how; now it’s time for the why.
Sophon is now live, and it has a bunch of interesting launch partners. Some of these partnerships have been made public, and some haven’t, but every single one has been made with the specific intent of creating entertaining and engaging on-chain experiences.
So, let’s run through a couple to make the image a little clearer.:
Petopia (Mirai Labs)
Let’s start with arguably the biggest consumer-facing application on the Internet: gaming.
Gaming is going to be a massive part of Sophon, and Mirai Labs is going to play a major role in it.
If you haven’t heard of Mirai Labs, let me give you a name that you most likely have heard. Pegaxy. Yes, the on-chain horse racing game that’s the second largest blockchain game after Axie Infinity.
Mirai Labs are the developers of Pegaxy.
They will be among the founding partners at launch for Sophon, and seeing that they clearly have the ability to produce high-level games, this partnership simply makes sense.
As a launch partner, Mirai Labs will bring the game Petopia to Sophon from day one.
Petopia is currently live, and users can participate in tournaments with cash prizes of up to 150k
If some of you have played Petopia on the old servers, the core features will remain the same, but on the Sophon server, all NFT heroes are reset, and all players will start on a level playing field.
Currently, users can play the Hall of Fame game mode, which is exclusive to Sophon, but in the near future, players will also be able to take part in Trial of Speed and Hold the Line.
Petopia has already played a huge role in web3 gaming by onboarding 27 million wallets to the Polygon ecosystem — and now, it is live on Sophon.
Mirai Labs and the Sophon team will be working closely together to not only make top-notch web3 games, but also some finance and social-based applications to propel this new age of consumer-focused crypto applications.
Brutal Knights
Brutal Knights is another strategy-based game that will be launching on Sophon.
Unfortunately, the team has not revealed much about the inner workings of the game thus far. However, they have announced on Twitter that early access is live.
https://x.com/BrutalKnights/status/1864458428879634506
If it’s something that you’re interested in, then check it out.
Rivalry
Now let’s move on to something for the degenerate gamblers.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with the likes of Stake, Shuffle, and Rollbit. Well, Rivalry is a similar platform but just A LOT better. Let me give you some background on Rivalry.
It is a publicly listed company that is deploying on-chain with Sophon. They have roughly two million users — yup, you heard that right — TWO MILLION USERS. They have processed $1 billion in wagers and are only growing stronger. Now, they are bringing their product to Sophon.
But why?
You see, casinos are in a weird spot in terms of relationships with consumers. It’s always player vs. house, so while their customers essentially lose to them, they also need them to be loyal. “Lose-to-me-but-love-me” situation.
With crypto, this dynamic can be changed to create more of a win-win environment, which is why Rivalry is leveraging crypto infrastructure through Sophon.
They have a token called NUTZ that completely changes this dynamic.
Through Rivalry, anyone will be able to launch their own branded casino where users can wager using the NUTZ token. So, while the NUTZ token will get utility in the form of wagering, it will also be used as a reward token. This means active users get healthy rakebacks in NUTZ.
NUTZ goes absolutely nuts with the introduction of staking.
Staking NUTZ essentially allows you to be the House by receiving a revenue share. But if you’re really nuts, you also get the option to bet against the House. NUTZ stakers can also participate in real-time lotteries to win big prizes and climb the VIP ranks faster.
I mean, talk about slapping your nuts on the table!
Alright, enough with the nuts puns, but I think you get the point. Sophon is onboarding a legitimate and massive casino platform with a huge user base on the platform from day one.
The Rivalry team wanted to enter crypto with a purpose, and their elegantly designed token on Sophon is the answer they have been looking for.
So for any gambler whose itch isn’t satisfied by Pump.fun and 100x lev, Sophon is the place for you.
With Rivalry, you can enjoy online casino classics like Plinko, Crash, and Hi-Lo, as well as live games such as Blackjack and Baccarat. For the bettors, you can also bet on sports and esports.
Everything is at your fingertips.
OPEN
Let’s switch gears a bit and look at a sector that is an important part of our lives — ticketing.
Whether you’re going for a 12-hour drug-fueled techno gig or a simple visit to the museum with your family, everyone uses tickets.
OPEN is changing the ticketing game with their NFT ticketing solution.
You see, despite being an almost $100 billion industry, online ticketing is rife with scams and ticket scalping. Fake tickets and dodgy secondary markets are the norm. Fortunately, NFTs are the perfect solution to this.
NFTs allow ownership to be verified, and they can easily be traded on secondary markets on-chain. OPEN provides the infrastructure to make this trivially easy for everyone.
Having worked with the likes of F1 and other massive fest organizers, it’s safe to say they have the capacity to execute on a larger scale.
By partnering with OPEN, Sophon essentially allows anyone in the world to get cheap and easy access to online tickets where the tickets' validity can always be verified.
These are just a few of the examples to give you an idea of how Sophon is moving.
They have a bunch more partners fulfilling different roles, and they are working closely with each and every one of them to ensure that Sophon is the most intuitive experience when it comes to engaging with products onchain.
Anomaly
The buck doesn’t stop at gaming, ticketing, and casinos. When we talk about consumer-facing applications, AI has to be a part of the conversation.
AI has been the hottest sector in the industry thus far, and Anomaly is set to be a huge player in this space.
Their main focus is AI gaming wherein they use a bunch of AI tools to enhance and improve crypto gaming.
While this is a great application, in the context of Sophon, there is something much bigger that the Anomaly team is launching: NOVA.
Many of you reading this must be familiar with AI agents by now. Put simply, they are systems that can perform tasks with almost no human intervention. They are a better version of regular bots because they can not only automate any task but also adapt to new data and autonomously respond to different inputs.
There’s no doubt that AI agents are going to continue to be one of the biggest sectors this cycle and beyond. NOVA will be bringing that experience to Sophon.
Some of you may be familiar with LUNA, one of the first fully sentient AI agents that streams on TikTok, interacts with users, and sometimes even trades on-chain. Well, NOVA is a similar fully sentient AI agent that will use the Anomaly platform as the infrastructure layer and be live on Sophon.
NOVA is actually Reddit’s first AI agent. So the fact that it’s live on Sophon speaks volumes.
The early access is currently live, so feel free to get involved before everybody else floods in.
Off the back of this, you can expect a sizable AI agent ecosystem to grow on the ZK chain. So if you’re looking for AI agent exposure or access, Sophon has you covered there as well.
Pioneers of New World
If you think that is too crypto-focused, wait till you hear about this one.
Have you heard of Catan? The board game that’s sold close to 50 million copies and is estimated to have roughly 20 million regular players? It’s a pretty big one, isn’t it?
Well, Pioneers Of New World is a turn-based strategy game that is inspired by Catan, and they will be launching on Sophon.
It is a free-to-play multiplayer game where users can play normal matches and also participate in tournaments. There will be different types of cash rewards and collectible items throughout the game, which is where the crypto element will come in.
Given how popular turn-based strategy board games are, this one is surely going to be huge for Sophon.
GAMP
GAMP is another gaming partner for Sophon.
GAMP is a gamers' camp. The general idea behind the product is to bring back the old-school essence of gaming. That means rewarding players for their time spent on games while also keeping the social interaction element alive. The idea is to do this by keeping user acquisition costs low for games.
GAMP allows gamers to take control of their gaming experience. Whether they are playing casually or participating in tournaments, they have complete ownership over their experience and their assets.
GAMP features industry favorites on its platform, such as Brawl Stars, Chess.com, Clash of Clans, Valorant, and many more. This has allowed it to grow its registered player base to 198k gamers.
With a strong player base, they also have all the tools to support devs.
Devs can take advantage of the robust GAMP community to launch and test their games.
Three on-chain tokens will power the entire GAMP ecosystem. One is Fireflies (the entry pass), XP (points for leveling up), and GAMP coin (the powerhouse currency).
This entire vibrant ecosystem will be coming to Sophon.
Animix
Oh, you thought that was all for gaming? Well, think again!
Another interesting game that is currently in beta on Sophon is Animix.
It is an AI-powered game in which users can mix DNA to create fantasy pets and then participate in battles with other players to collect other creatures and rewards.
For the first week, there are $6000 in rewards up for grabs, and as the game keeps growing, you can expect the rewards to get even bigger.
So, if fantasy battle games are your thing, look no further than Animix.
NooN
So far it’s been all games, AI, and non-crypto-native applications. But there is one crypto-native product that has penetrated into the mainstream and will continue to do so.
Any guesses?
If you guessed stablecoins, you’re a winner! (Unfortunately you win nothing other than kudos!)
Stablecoins are arguably one of crypto’s most important product offerings. The ability to hold virtually any amount of any currency onchain and being able to transact permissionlessly with it… is pretty impressive.
Therefore, Sophon will also have its own stablecoin for its users.
That stablecoin is NooN.
They are currently in private beta which you can join by clicking this link, but unfortunately, there isn’t too much information revealed about them thus far.
What we do know is that it will be a yield-generating stablecoin. This is great for non-crypto-native users who can simply hold passive income-generating assets while occasionally participating in on-chain activities.
NooN will be live exclusively on Ethereum and Sophon.
Supporting applications and supporting growth
Look, partnerships and strong BD are good to have. I think Sophon doing over 1 million transactions within the first 16 hours of being live speaks volumes.
However, that is not the be-all and end-all. There needs to be more substance to what’s being built on the chain.
You can go out and partner with everyone under the sun, only to eventually slowly die via fragmentation. If you want to build something that persists, it requires patience and attention.
Beyond limiting their partnerships and focusing on a few top-quality projects that they work closely with, they also have a couple of initiatives that further shows their commitment to supporting top-tier projects.
TACOM
TACOM stands for Tactical Compute Fund.
It is a $40 million initiative that involves Aethir, Beam Foundation, MetaStreet, and the Sophon Foundation.
The general idea behind the initiative is that things like AI consumer applications, adaptive gaming experiences, and decentralized systems are all going to be major sectors in the near future. One thing that all of them require is significant compute power.
This fund will be used to support and build out this infrastructure.
So the focus will be on compute-denominated things like hardware financing, yield arbitrage, and network bootstrapping. Essentially helping build out the infrastructure to power all of these next-gen applications.
As you can see from the partnerships mentioned above, the Sophon network will play a huge role in this initiative.
Beam Ventures
Recently, Beam announced the launch of Beam Ventures, the first fully licensed crypto gaming fund in Abu Dhabi.
Sophon is a founding member of this fund.
The fund will focus on:
- Introducing blockchain technology to the gaming industry
- Consumer AI applications
By being a founding member of the fund that will foster the growth of gaming and AI applications, the Sophon network will naturally see many of these applications deployed on its network.
The developers of these applications also benefit from working closely with industry veterans who will do their best to ensure that the product is a success.
Ultimately, everyone wins.
Closing thoughts
The Sophon team is what I like to call forward thinkers — people who genuinely see the bigger picture and execute with patience.
I know this is hard for us degens grinding in the trenches because we just want to make a quick buck and leave. However, those who play the longer game often turn out to be the big winners.
They have understood the underlying power of this technology and have also recognized how people can benefit from it. Knowing this, they have made a meticulous plan to abstract away the complexity behind the technology while allowing everyone to benefit from the underlying tech.
Since their target is completely different from any other L2 we have seen, we also need to judge their success differently. Metrics like net new wallets created could be a good indicator of how many non-native participants are entering.
The usage that platforms like ticketing or gaming will get over a typical DeFi application may also be a good measure.
Judging by things like TVL or bridged value may not be the best indicator because Sophon is looking for success beyond nativity.
So while the metrics might not be fleshed out yet, we need to see Sophon triumph in the mainstream to truly call them a success.
I have no doubt that they can achieve this. The question is, will you be along for the ride?
For those of you who have made it this far, here is a bit of alpha that can get you into an exclusive Sophon inner circle.
Make your way over to the Sophon portal, where there is an Easter Egg. I can’t say much, but let the logo guide you, and you shall find your way…
