Sonic

TLDR: Sonic is Solana's first SVM chain extension, a network that started as a gaming-focused Layer 2 and has since evolved into a programmable attention economy platform. Built by Mirror World Inc., it combines HyperGrid optimistic rollups with a growing product suite that includes TikTok-native Web3 gaming, ephemeral AI agent execution sessions, and a novel on-chain framework for capturing and monetising user attention. The SONIC token launched in January 2025 with a 2.4 billion token supply and is listed on major exchanges.

What Sonic Is

Sonic is the first SVM (Solana Virtual Machine) chain extension to go live on Solana. Where most Layer 2 projects replicate Ethereum's EVM environment on top of another chain, Sonic takes a different approach: it runs Solana's own execution environment as a high-throughput overlay network that settles back to Solana Layer 1. This means existing Solana programs run inside Sonic without modification, and the two layers share native composability with Solana's programs, accounts, and liquidity.

At inception in 2024, the project positioned itself as the infrastructure layer for on-chain gaming. Over 2025 and 2026, it broadened that thesis, describing its mission as "architecting the attention economy" — turning measurable user engagement, both on-chain and off-chain, into a programmable and tradable capital asset.

HyperGrid: Solana's First Concurrent Scaling Framework

Sonic is built on HyperGrid, a framework the team describes as Solana's first concurrent scaling solution. HyperGrid orchestrates optimistic rollup instances, each of which can be dedicated to a specific game, application, or organisation. The technical design combines:

• Optimistic rollups: Transactions execute off-chain and settle atomically to Solana L1, drastically cutting per-transaction costs.
• Horizontal scaling: Multiple Grid instances can run concurrently without contention, enabling different applications to have their own sovereign execution environment.
• State compression: On-chain storage is reduced for large-scale game state that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive on base-layer Solana.
• Byzantine Fault Tolerance: The consensus mechanism is designed to remain consistent under adversarial conditions.
• Atomic interoperability: Because Sonic extends Solana rather than bridging to it, programs and accounts on both layers remain natively interoperable.

The net effect is a chain that can handle far higher request rates than base Solana for latency-sensitive applications while inheriting Solana's security and liquidity on final settlement.

SonicX and the TikTok App Layer

The flagship consumer product launched on Sonic is SonicX, a tap-to-earn game integrated directly into TikTok, what the team calls the "industry's first Web3 TikTok App Layer." Launched in October 2024, SonicX reached over two million users, providing a proof-of-concept that Web3 onboarding could work at social-media scale. Players accumulate points through in-app actions, with those points forming the basis for token distributions. The TikTok integration was a deliberate design choice: Sonic's CEO Chris Zhu worked at ByteDance (TikTok's parent company) before co-founding Mirror World, the company that operates Sonic.

SonicX demonstrated that the Sonic stack could absorb high-frequency, low-value interactions, millions of micro-transactions that would be economically unviable on Solana L1, while still preserving the ability to bridge assets and state back to the base layer.

Rush ECS: A Game Developer SDK

Alongside HyperGrid, Sonic released Rush, a Rust-based Entity-Component-System framework designed to lower the barrier for on-chain game development. Rush abstracts the complexity of Solana account models and program architecture into familiar game-engine patterns, allowing developers to define game entities, components, and systems without deep blockchain expertise.

North Star: Ephemeral Execution for AI Agents

In June 2026, Sonic launched North Star, its most significant infrastructure addition since the mainnet. North Star provides instant, isolated, private execution sessions for autonomous AI agents and high-frequency applications.

The mechanism works as follows: a developer or agent opens a session via a single SDK call. The relevant Solana accounts are delegated into a private runtime and locked on Solana L1 for the duration of the session. The agent executes compute-intensive tasks within that runtime at near-zero cost and at the runtime's own cadence. When the session closes, all state changes commit atomically back to Solana.

North Star functions as an execution layer rather than a general-purpose sidechain. Existing Solana programs run inside sessions unmodified. The first live application built on North Star is Eva.fun, an autonomous agent arena where AI agents compete in real-time trading rounds with SOL at stake.

Alan, Sonic SVM's co-founder, framed the design goal plainly: "Agents are not retail users. They are continuous on-chain workers that need predictable, isolated execution."

The Attention Capital Markets Protocol

Sonic's most recent strategic pivot is its Attention Capital Markets (ACM) protocol, activated on mainnet in 2026 following a capital raise from DWF Labs and Awaken Finance. ACM is designed to make user attention a programmable, measurable asset on-chain.

The protocol captures two classes of signals:

• Off-chain signals: impressions, clicks, views, and wallet connections sourced via oracles.
• On-chain metrics: transaction counts, volume, and protocol interactions.

These signals are aggregated into Attention Epochs and scored through a transparent mechanism that produces Base, Authority, and Final Attention Scores for participating programmes. Rewards cycle back into ecosystem incentives based on those scores.

The ACM whitepaper was co-authored with NYU Professor Xi Chen, a specialist in computational economics. Sonic's CEO characterised the launch as "the beginning of a new age where attention itself becomes capital."

SONIC Token

The SONIC token launched on January 7, 2025, with a total supply of 2.4 billion. At TGE, 15% of supply entered circulation. Allocation is as follows:

• Community and ecosystem: 57% (30% ecosystem grants, 20% HyperGrid validator rewards, 7% initial airdrop)
• Foundation: 20% (18-month cliff, 36-month linear vest)
• Investors: 15% (12-month cliff, 24-month quarterly vest)
• Early supporters: 8% (12-month cliff, 24-month quarterly vest)

The initial airdrop distributed 7.8 million SONIC tokens to SonicX players, Sonic Odyssey participants, HyperFuse node holders, Sonic AVS delegators, and Mirror World NFT holders. Eligible recipients could choose between claiming the full amount immediately or claiming 60% upfront and receiving a 40% bonus via a six-month linear vest.

SONIC serves multiple roles within the ecosystem: payment currency for in-game assets and services on Sonic SVM, staking collateral for HyperGrid validators who earn veSONIC and surplus fees in return, and governance voting weight. veSONIC staking was formalised via Proposal #01 in November 2025, introducing a boost mechanism for stakers.

Team and Funding

Sonic is built by Mirror World Inc., which operates as "Mirror World Inc. d/b/a Sonic SVM." CEO Chris Zhu previously worked at ByteDance. Co-founder Alan leads infrastructure development, including the North Star product.

The project has raised $16 million from Bitkraft Ventures and Galaxy Interactive, both gaming-focused investment funds. Additional strategic capital came from DWF Labs and Awaken Finance as part of the ACM protocol expansion round.

Sonic's Fit in the Solana Ecosystem

Sonic addresses a genuine gap in Solana's scaling story. Solana L1 is optimised for financial applications, high-value, low-latency settlement, but the economics become strained when applications need millions of low-value micro-interactions, persistent game state, or isolated execution for automated agents. HyperGrid provides that isolation while using Solana for security and liquidity.

The pivot from gaming-only to the broader attention economy broadens Sonic's addressable market but retains the same underlying infrastructure thesis: applications that need throughput and cost structures Solana L1 cannot economically support, while still wanting to settle and interoperate with Solana's DeFi and liquidity ecosystem.

As of mid-2026, Sonic operates an active mainnet, has a live token, a running staking programme, and a launched AI execution product. The project continues to build toward a multi-SVM vision in which multiple HyperGrid chains coexist and interoperate under a shared network of SONIC validators and veSONIC governance.