Sophon: Building a User-Centric Zero-Knowledge Entertainment Chain

Original Title: "Rootdata Today's Top 10 Hot List 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 be a scalable, interoperable, user-centric decentralized application platform focusing on entertainment, gaming, social, artificial intelligence, and ticketing.

Technical Architecture

Sophon's technical architecture is the cornerstone of its core competitiveness, aiming to provide a high-performance, low-cost, and user-friendly blockchain experience through the integration of ZK Stack, Validium, Account Abstraction (AA), Paymaster, and zkTLS technologies.

Sophon is built on the ZK Stack – a development framework custom-built for zero-knowledge proof-driven modular blockchain. Through this framework, Sophon achieves efficient validation of off-chain transactions and state compression submission and enhances data on-chain efficiency and interoperability based on Rollup technology. Sophon adopts Validium as the core scaling solution, transferring data availability off-chain (currently Avail), significantly reducing transaction costs, and enhancing privacy protection capabilities. This is particularly crucial for high-frequency microtransaction scenarios such as gaming, social, and ticketing, as their sensitivity to throughput and cost far exceeds the value of the transaction itself.

Sophon supports Account Abstraction, enabling accounts to initiate transactions like traditional wallets and embed complex logic internally. Users can access on-chain services through methods like Google's single sign-on (SSO), enhancing the usability and security of self-custodial accounts. The Paymaster smart contract allows users to conduct gasless transactions and supports paying transaction fees with ERC20 tokens or subsidization by the application for users. This significantly improves the user-friendliness and development flexibility of on-chain applications. The Sophon protocol layer integrates innovative zkTLS technology, combining the security of the TLS protocol with the privacy of zero-knowledge proofs. Users can verify data from Web2 platforms such as Spotify, Steam, and Amazon Prime on-chain without revealing the original information, providing a trusted intermediary layer for data monetization and user profiling.

Fundraising and Team

According to Rootdata, the project previously received investment from YZi Labs in October 24, but the specific amount was not disclosed; in March 2024, they completed a $10 million fundraising 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 a node sale, demonstrating strong community funding support and user participation.

On the team front, members have deep backgrounds covering key dimensions such as Web3 infrastructure, product design, gaming, fintech, and more:

· Co-founder Sebastien @0xsebastiena, former Head of Web3 at Matter Labs;

· Chief Marketing Officer Oskari Tempakka @oskaritem, Venture Partner at PROfounders Capital;

· Chief Operating Officer Ed Chang @EdC, former Head of Gaming at Ava Labs;

· Vice President of Product Ramon Canales @ramonIsTweeting, former Head of Product Delivery at Matter Labs, Product Lead at Aagon;

· Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder Tom Bean @tcbean, previously at Nokia. Product Manager Adam @CryptoDealer, and others.

Tokenomics

The token $SOPH has a total supply of 10 billion, distributed as follows:

· Node Operators (20%): Rewards from January 25 to TGE have a 3-month lockup period starting from TGE, and rewards earned weekly after TGE have a 3-month lockup period from that week, followed by a linear unlock over 7 days;

· Seed Investors (18%): 12-month cliff + 24-month linear unlock;

· Core Contributors (25%): 12-month cliff + 36-month linear unlock;

· Ecosystem Protection Reserve (26%): 42% unlocked after TGE, remaining 58% linearly unlocked over five years;

· Post-Mainnet Liquidity Mining (2%): 6-month cliff period + 6-month linear unlock;

· Pre-Mainnet Liquidity Mining Airdrop (6%): 100% unlocked;

· Bonus Airdrop (3%): 100% unlocked.

Of note, 57% of the tokens are allocated to community-related activities (nodes, liquidity, airdrops), demonstrating the team's strong emphasis on decentralized governance and user participation. At the same time, the core team and early investors have extended lock-up periods in place to effectively prevent dumping, reinforcing long-term network stability and value consensus.

Ecosystem Development

Sophon's ecosystem development strategy revolves around robust network infrastructure, strategic partnerships, and active community engagement, aiming to create a sustainable Web3 consumer application platform. While the current number of DApps is still in its early stages and the overall ecosystem is yet to fully thrive, strong financial support, sound underlying technology, and team execution capabilities set the foundation for subsequent ecosystem growth. Further involvement of developers and users will be key drivers in propelling Sophon's growth.

Data Analysis

According to Defillama, the current total value locked (TVL) in DeFi is $18.44 million, and when including Sophon Farming, the total TVL is around $177 million. Currently, there are approximately 420,000 total accounts, around 73 million total transactions, about 9,521 deployed nodes, and approximately 7,665 active nodes.

Conclusion

As a Layer 2 solution focused on consumer scenarios, Sophon demonstrates a unique position and significant potential within the Web3 ecosystem. Its core strengths lie in: a user-friendly on-chain experience (AA + Paymaster), an innovative zkTLS mechanism bridging the Web2 and Web3 worlds, high throughput under the Validium architecture, a low-cost chain, and a community-centric large-scale token distribution and incentive mechanism.

However, the current reliance on a single sequencer remains one of the centralization bottlenecks. In the future, it is necessary to gradually achieve decentralization of the sequencer to enhance censorship resistance and system security. Although substantial funding has been obtained and extensive strategic partnerships have been established, the ecological applications have not yet exploded and require continued ecosystem development.

Overall, Sophon has the three pillars of technology, funding, and team in place. If the ecological maturity and infrastructure optimization can be continuously promoted, it is expected to occupy an important position in the next wave of Web3 application explosion, realizing the ultimate vision of "empowering users with powerful blockchain capabilities invisibly."

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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