
PANews|Sep 04, 2025 07:46
Is the new public chain of millions of TPSs a real dark horse or a marketing foam?
On September 2nd, the high-performance L1 public chain Somnia announced its mainnet launch, claiming to have completed 10 billion transactions on the test network and simultaneously launched the native token SOMI, which will be logged into mainstream exchanges such as Binance and Bybit upon its launch.
Behind it are the British unicorn Improbable, as well as indirect endorsements from capital such as SoftBank and a16z.
However, the dazzling aura of capital contrasts sharply with the skepticism of the community.
The core narrative of Somnia is' million TPS'. Its technology relies on two major designs: multi stream consensus mechanism (splitting transactions into parallel data chains, which are then quickly confirmed by the consensus chain) and accelerated sequential execution (compiling EVM bytecode into high-performance local machine code).
In theory, it can alleviate parallel conflicts and achieve extremely high throughput. But the actual data is far lower than advertised: Chainspec recorded a peak TPS of only about 25000 for the testing network, which is still considered high-performance but far from millions of TPS. A considerable portion of the billions of transactions on the testnet are still concentrated in individual applications, such as Chunked, which contributed 250 million transactions alone.
On the first day of its launch, Somnia's performance was not particularly impressive. The active users are only 68000, with approximately 256000 transactions in 24 hours, far below its claimed ability. The total number of SOMI tokens is 1 billion, with an initial circulation of 160 million, and a deflation mechanism of 50% gas destruction has been designed. But the price quickly fell to $0.42 after reaching an online high of $0.66, currently hovering around $0.48, with a total market value of approximately $480 million.
What's even more tricky is that Somnia "crashed" during the airdrop phase. Many users who participated in tasks, completed KYC, and even paid fees in the early stages have been disqualified, and the Chinese community is particularly dissatisfied. Even if the airdrop is obtained, TGE only unlocks 20%, and the remaining 80% still needs to complete complex tasks to be released. As a result, official social media platforms were filled with doubts, and community sentiment deteriorated sharply.
On the capital and resource side, Somnia does not lack momentum. Improbable has committed $270 million in funding support for its ecosystem, with over 70 projects initially focused on blockchain gaming, and has launched a $10 million grant program. But in the industry context where high-performance storytelling has gradually become aesthetically fatigued, without popular applications, it is difficult to maintain attention solely based on technical parameters.
Somnia may be the "next fastest public chain" or another capital driven marketing foam.
Whether it can run in the future depends on three factors: whether technology can be implemented in real scenarios, whether community cracks can be repaired, and whether it can incubate applications that truly attract users.
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