The Ship of Theseus paradox: If you replace every plank of a ship, one by one, is it still the same ship when finished? Sonic, born from Fantom, poses the same question.

In December 2024, @SonicLabs began as an upgrade to Fantom. While maintaining Fantom’s philosophical core, Sonic replaced critical components—database architecture, virtual machine, and consensus optimizations—creating something that technically shares Fantom’s DNA yet delivers performance that has completely outgrown its predecessor. This transformation raises a few questions. What makes a blockchain truly “new”? Is it the code base? The developer team? The token? Or is it the experience and capabilities it offers users? Sonic presents us with the blockchain equivalent of the Ship of Theseus paradox—if you rebuild a chain’s database, upgrade its VM, and enhance its consensus while keeping its foundational philosophy, at what point does it become an entirely different entity? Sonic took Fantom’s components. It rebuilt them plank by plank. It created something new while honoring Fantom’s legacy. The key changes were —

• Rethinking the database with SonicDB. After processing 40 million blocks on the mainnet, Fantom concluded that 84% of the time was spent accessing the database. The new architecture allows nodes to prune data. Pruning is deleting old data that’s no longer needed without disrupting the network. Which means the size of the database is reduced. The result is 60% and ~96% cost reduction for validator and RPC nodes, respectively.
• SonicVM. The EVM bytecode is converted into a format that supports super instructions. The result is better batching and ~65X speed improvement over the previous virtual machine.
• Consensus optimisations. Sonic uses the same consensus as Fantom but changes two things. First, ot reduces the complexity of the messages that nodes exchange among themselves. Second, it reduces the number of messages that nodes need to exchange among themselves. The result is reduced consensus overhead.

The result of these changes was that Sonic reached 10k TPS compared to Fantom’s 2k, with ~1 second finality.

This is the theoretical limit. What is actually happening?

Currently, the maximum hourly TPS is ~900, and the average hourly TPS is 14. This is because the demand for Sonic’s blockcspace is simply not there yet. The maximum number of transactions on a day was 1.11 million. For a chain to have a consistent TPS of 10k throughout the day, it needs to have a demand of 864 million transactions. No chain has this demand today.

Theoretical TPS looking for practical demand

User behavior

Sonic has about 47K daily active addresses, slightly below Berachain’s ~60k. For contrast, Solana has 3.3 million daily active addresses, and Base has 1.7 million as per Token Terminal’s data.

TVL Growth

Since the launch, Sonic’s TVL reached $1 billion in ~2 months. It’s tempting to argue that Fantom was already live, so Sonic had a headstart. But at the time of Sonic’s debut, Fantom’s TVL was just $180 million, and when Sonic hit $1 billion, Fantom’s TVL stood at ~$120 million, showing that migration from Fantom to Sonic was not a major factor.

What about other chains like Aptos and Sui?

Aptos and Sui raised more than $300M each, yet Sonic — essentially a Fantom upgrade — blew past them with minimal external funding. In fact, Sonic’s primary “funding” came from redirecting existing Fantom resources and incentives, not massive VC rounds.

Numbers render the “just Fantom migration” counter-argument weak. When Sonic launched in December 2024, Fantom’s TVL sat at roughly $180M. Today, Fantom still maintains $160M TVL while Sonic cleared $1B. Simple math shows that over $800M in new capital flowed specifically to Sonic, not from Fantom cannibalization.

How does Sonic compare with other chains that have debuted recently?

Despite having more addresses, Abstract has a lower DEX trading volume. This suggests its users might be doing smaller trades or engaging with activities like games or NFTs.

In contrast, Sonic has fewer users overall, but they’re generating much higher trading volume. This indicates Sonic’s community is more focused on financial activities.

This difference highlights how the two chains are attracting different types of users:

• Abstract appeals to a broader audience interested in various Web3 activities
• Sonic attracts more dedicated traders/investors and DeFi users who move larger amounts of capital

Source - DefiLlama

Source - DefiLlama

Sonic’s DEX volume is similar to Berachain’s, while Berachain has 3x the TVL. This indicates that Sonic’s capital is more active than Berachain’s.

Source - DefiLlama

Sonic Ecosystem

I am going to stick to DeFi sectors for this article since that’s the focus for Sonic.

Lending

• Aave and Compound dominate in TVL ($30 B and $3.4 B, respectively). Their FDV/TVL ratios hover around 0.12–0.15, suggesting a balanced relationship between protocol valuation and locked capital.
• Silo Finance ($383 M TVL) and Avalon ($160 M) are mid-sized protocols with slightly higher FDV/TVL ratios, implying the market may be pricing in growth potential.
• @eggsonsonic and @Rings_Protocol are smaller in TVL (under $60 M each), reflecting either newer protocols or more niche markets.

For Sonic or any DeFi-specific platform, lending protocols represent a critical piece of the stack. Large, well-established platforms like Aave and Compound set the bar for reliability and scale. Aave has already deployed on Sonic. It will be interesting to see how smaller, more Sonic native lending protocols take on giants like Aave to grow their share of the lending market.

Along with the likes of Aave, if Sonic-based lending protocols can achieve even a fraction of the TVLs of chains like Ethereum, it will underscore the chain’s viability for large capital flows.

Staking

• Lido dominates with $22.8 B in TVL. Its FDV ($1,403 M) leads to a relatively low FDV/TVL ratio of 0.06, suggesting its token valuation is moderate compared to the capital secured by the protocol.
• EigenLayer has $10.8 B in TVL with a higher FDV/TVL ratio of 0.26. While still large, the market is pricing in the entire scope of EigenLayer much beyond pure staking like Lido.
• @beets_fi is a mid-sized protocol at $150 M in TVL, showing an FDV/TVL ratio of 0.08—closer to Lido’s level in terms of proportional valuation.
• Origin Sonic, has a smaller TVL of $32 M and a notably higher FDV/TVL ratio of 0.97, reflecting either a more speculative market cap or simply the early-stage nature of the project.

Staking and liquid staking protocols are central to a chain’s security, liquidity and capital efficiency. They attract and lock capital, providing network stability and generating yields for token holders.

But just staking is not enough. There should be yield markets plugged into staking to make it more attractive. For example, you can stake Sonic ($S) using Beets, and get stS. You can further use this in protocols like Pendle and @StableJack_xyz to earn yield and/or points. The ecosystem is nascent. Major yield protocols like Pendle have moved to Sonic.

DEXs

DEXs are perhaps the most important component of DeFi. Ultimately, almost every DeFi activity is supported by swaps. Obviously, giants like Uniswap and PancakeSwap are way way ahead of new Sonic native DEXs like @Shadowonsonic.

But by adding a new twist to old mechanics, exchanges like Shadow are creating new ways of attracting capital and volume. Along with the old voting escrow mechanism that allows holders to vote after locking tokens, Shadow directs 100% of the fee revenue to xSHADOW holders. The result is significantly higher revenue for token holders.

With this mechanism, Shadow passed on $4.7 million from $1.3 billion monthly volume to xSHADOW holders. It has the highest holder revenue per volume.

Perps

Hyperliquid stands out with an enormous 30-day volume of $202 B, paired with a high FDV of $18 B. Yet, its FDV/Volume ratio (0.09) remains moderate, suggesting that its valuation is not wildly out of sync with usage.

dYdX has a 30-day volume of $9.5 B and an FDV of $488 M—giving it a lower FDV/Volume ratio (0.05), indicative of an established brand and steady usage.

Derivatives are just getting started on Sonic. Numbers give a sense of how Sonic’s own nascent perp DEXs could evolve. Sonic aims to deliver high throughput and low fees—qualities that are essential for perpetual trading. So far, there are no breakout successes in terms of volume and liquidity. At the same time, the relative success of smaller players like @NaviExSonic shows there’s room for specialized or niche offerings to thrive if they leverage Sonic’s technical advantages.

No more walled gardens

Hyperliquid showed us that taking an opinionated stance on a specific niche yields tremendous benefits. By perfecting perpetual futures, they’ve created a benchmark product. Can Sonic follow a similar philosophy but with a broader DeFi vision, recognizing that DeFi extends beyond just perpetual futures?

When I think about standout platforms like Hyperliquid or dYdX, a critical missing element is: seamless integration with the wider DeFi ecosystem. Despite excellence in futures trading, these platforms remain disconnected from lending protocols, options markets and other DeFi primitives.

Our aim with DeFi should always be to enable TradFi-level composability. Imagine seamlessly using the same collateral across futures, options, and lending protocols—taking a long position via futures, hedging downside risk through options, and simultaneously earning yield via lending, all within the same integrated ecosystem. Today’s DeFi landscape dominated by platforms like Hyperliquid or dYdX can’t do this. Despite their excellence in execution and liquidity.

No tradfi derivatives venue restricts users to only futures or only options. DeFi has proven it can produce exceptional individual products, but these remain largely siloed. This integration isn’t merely about better liquidity – it’s about capital efficiency.

Of course, better capital efficiency means better liquidity and sharper pricing. But to me, DeFi NEEDS to improve capital efficiency because it means more people can participate and express their views on the market. It means we lower the barriers to entry. It means more inclusive markets. Isn’t that why we started this whole thing? We set out to dismantle the walls of the financial garden, and better capital efficiency takes us closer to that.

With @AndreCronjeTech as CTO, Sonic has someone who deeply understands financial systems and has built successful financial products on-chain. The team’s experience, coupled with Sonic’s architecture, creates potential for something fresh in DeFi.

My hope for Sonic is that it evolves into a platform where different DeFi applications blend seamlessly to create a TradFi-equivalent experience — but with the openness and accessibility that only DeFi can provide.

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