After announcing its plans to develop a public blockchain nearly a year ago, Sony today confirmed that it has built the new blockchain, Soneium, which will soon launch a testnet. Last year, the Japanese giant invested and partnered with Startale Labs, the founder of Astar Network. Sony owns 90% of the Singaporean joint venture, Sony Block Solution Labs, which built Soneium.
Sony rightly points out that there are many use cases for Web3 that have yet to be adopted by the public. Sony has a veritable treasure trove of content across several divisions, including Sony Pictures (formerly Columbia Pictures), Sony Music, and Sony PlayStation.
The Japanese company wants to use its content to develop Web3 applications in order to “engage people who have never used Web3 services.” In addition to its own content, it also wants to empower creators and developers.
“We believe that the defining moment for the entire Web3 industry will be whether we, as Web3 companies, can truly provide solutions that billions of people naturally use in their daily lives and make Web3 mainstream in the coming years,” said Sota Watanabe, director of Sony Block Solution Labs.
“We believe Soneium has great potential to lead the world and realize this vision, and we would like to collaborate with a variety of developers and companies, transcending the boundaries of countries, regions and industries.”
From a technical perspective, Startale’s Astar network is built as a Polkadot parachain. However, instead of a Polkadot chain, Soneium will be a Layer 2 (L2) Ethereum blockchain using Optimism technology, the same technology used by Coinbase’s Base blockchain. Startale Labs has announced plans to transition the Astar network to Soneium L2.
Sony’s Web3 Expansive Steps
Meanwhile, based on previous announcements, Sony’s Web3 ambitions also encompass the metaverse. During the last wave of metaverse enthusiasm, the Second Life era, Sony Playstation created a virtual world called PlayStation Home. Like Home, the latest round of metaverse experiments have so far failed to gain traction. But they surely will eventually.
In early March 2023, Sony partnered with Startale Labs to launch a web3 incubator. The group has an NFT marketplace SNFT. Last year, it also acquired a cryptocurrency exchange that was recently rebranded to S.BLOX. In the meantime, Sony Bank launched a web3 application where it uses NFTs as incentives. It is also exploring a stablecoin on the Polygon blockchain. Once Soneium goes live, we assume that all of this will be transferred to Soneium.
