Original Title: "Rootdata Today's Hot List Top Ten Sophon @sophon: Building a User-Centric Zero-Knowledge Entertainment Chain"
Original Author: 0xThales
Project Introduction
Sophon @sophon is a zero-knowledge (ZK) chain built on the vision of ZKsync Elastic Chain, aiming to become a scalable, interoperable, user-centric decentralized application platform, focusing on consumer areas such as entertainment, gaming, social networking, artificial intelligence, and ticketing.
Technical Architecture
Sophon’s technical architecture is the cornerstone of its core competitiveness. By integrating ZK Stack, Validium, Account Abstraction (AA), Paymaster, and zkTLS technology, it is committed to providing a high-performance, low-cost, and user-friendly blockchain experience.
Sophon is built on ZK Stack—a development framework custom-made for zero-knowledge proof-driven modular blockchains. Through this framework, Sophon achieves effective verification of off-chain transactions and state compression submissions, enhancing data on-chain efficiency and interoperability based on Rollup technology. Sophon adopts Validium as its core scaling solution, transferring data availability off-chain (currently Avail), significantly reducing transaction costs and enhancing privacy protection. This is particularly critical for high-frequency micro-transaction scenarios such as gaming, social networking, and ticketing, as their sensitivity to throughput and cost far exceeds the value of the transactions themselves.
Sophon supports Account Abstraction, allowing accounts to initiate transactions like traditional wallets while embedding complex logic. Users can access on-chain services through single sign-on (SSO) methods like Google, improving the usability and security of self-custodied accounts. The Paymaster smart contract allows users to conduct zero Gas transactions and supports paying transaction fees with ERC20 tokens or subsidized by applications. This significantly enhances the usability of on-chain applications and development flexibility. The Sophon protocol layer integrates innovative zkTLS technology, combining the security of the TLS protocol with the privacy of zero-knowledge proofs, enabling users to verify data from Web2 platform accounts like Spotify, Steam, and Amazon Prime on-chain without disclosing original information, providing a trusted intermediary layer for data assetization and user profiling.
Funding and Team
According to Rootdata, the project previously received investment from YZi Labs in October 2024, though the specific amount was not disclosed; in March 2024, it completed a $10 million funding round led by Maven11 and Paper Ventures, with other participants including OKX Ventures, HTX Ventures, The Spartan Group, and SevenX Ventures. Additionally, the project raised over $60 million through node sales, demonstrating strong community financial support and user participation.
The team has a strong background, covering multiple key dimensions such as Web3 infrastructure, product design, gaming, and fintech:
· Co-founder Sebastien @0xsebastiena, former Web3 lead at Matter Labs;
· Marketing Director Oskari Tempakka @oskaritem, venture partner at PROfounders Capital;
· Chief Operating Officer Ed Chang @EdC, former gaming lead at Ava Labs;
· Vice President of Product Ramon Canales @ramonIsTweeting, former product delivery lead at Matter Labs and product lead at Aagon;
· Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder Tom Bean @tcbean, previously worked at Nokia. Product Manager Adam @CryptoDealer, among others.
Token Economics
The total supply of the token $SOPH is 10 billion, with the distribution mechanism as follows:
· Node Operators (20%): Rewards from January 1, 2025, to TGE will have a 3-month lock-up period starting from TGE, and rewards earned weekly after TGE will have a 3-month lock-up period starting from that week, followed by a 7-day linear unlock;
· Seed Investors (18%): 12-month cliff + 24-month linear unlock;
· Core Contributors (25%): 12-month cliff + 36-month linear unlock;
· Ecosystem Reserve (26%): 42% will be unlocked after TGE, with the remaining 58% linearly unlocked over five years;
· Liquidity Mining Post-Mainnet (2%): 6-month cliff + 6-month linear unlock;
· Pre-Mainnet Liquidity Mining Airdrop (6%): 100% unlocked;
· Bonus Airdrop (3%): 100% unlocked.
It is noteworthy that 57% of the tokens are allocated for community-related activities (nodes, liquidity, airdrops), indicating the team's high regard for decentralized governance and user participation. At the same time, the core team and early investors have a longer lock-up period for their holdings, effectively preventing sell pressure and strengthening long-term network stability and value consensus.
Ecosystem Development
Sophon’s ecosystem development strategy revolves around robust network infrastructure, strategic partnerships, and active community participation, aiming to create a sustainable Web3 consumer application platform. Although the current number of DApps is still in its early stages and the overall ecosystem is yet to flourish, strong financial support, improved underlying technology, and team execution capabilities lay the foundation for future ecosystem explosions. Further participation from developers and users will be the key driving force for Sophon’s growth.
Data Analysis
According to Defillama, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi is currently $18.44 million, and including Sophon Farming, the total TVL is approximately $177 million. Currently, there are about 420,000 total accounts, approximately 73 million total transactions, about 9,521 total deployed nodes, and around 7,665 active nodes.
Conclusion
As a zero-knowledge Layer 2 focused on consumer scenarios, Sophon demonstrates a unique positioning and immense potential in the Web3 ecosystem. Its core advantages include: user-friendly on-chain experience (AA + Paymaster), innovative zkTLS mechanism connecting Web2 and Web3 worlds, high throughput and low-cost chain under Validium architecture, and a large proportion of token distribution and incentive mechanisms aimed at the community.
However, the current reliance on a single sequencer remains one of the centralization bottlenecks, and future efforts should gradually achieve the decentralization of sequencers to enhance censorship resistance and system security. Although it has secured considerable funding and established extensive strategic partnerships, the ecological applications have yet to explode, requiring ongoing ecosystem development.
Overall, Sophon possesses the three pillars of technology, funding, and team. If it can continue to advance ecosystem maturity and infrastructure optimization, it is expected to occupy an important position in the next wave of Web3 application explosions, realizing the ultimate vision of "making powerful blockchain capabilities invisibly serve users."
Reference Links:
https://blog.sophon.xyz/soph-token-airdrop/
https://docs.sophon.xyz/
https://www.rootdata.com/Projects/detail/Sophon?k=MTIxNDc%3D
https://defillama.com/chain/Sophon
https://dune.com/sophon/sophon-network-overview
https://dune.com/hashed_official/sophon
https://portal.sophon.xyz/
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