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Sonic

S · Field entry
Smart-contract platformPayments & moneySmart contractsDeFiCaution flag

Fast EVM blockchain that replaced Fantom and shares gas fees with app builders

By

$0.04798.63%Snapshot · October 10, 2026 · updates live
Market cap
$186.17M
24h volume
$48.38M
Rank
#196
Circulating
3.89B S
Max supply
No fixed cap
All-time high
$1.03 January 4, 2025

S price chart

7-day snapshot. Chart data from CoinGecko.

Read this first — caution flag. An independent audit of the S supply and its past reporting was still pending as of October 10, 2026, after a period of discretionary token issuance and leadership turnover. How to evaluate a project.

What is Sonic?

Sonic is an Ethereum-compatible layer 1 blockchain launched in December 2024 by the organization formerly known as the Fantom Foundation, and it replaced the Fantom Opera network. S is the native coin: it pays transaction fees and is staked to secure the chain, and FTM holders could upgrade to S at a 1:1 rate. As of October 2026, Sonic is under new leadership and waiting on an independent audit of the S supply.

Utility Lens

What Sonic actually does

Sonic gives developers a fast, Ethereum-compatible chain with sub-second finality and lets them earn back a share of the gas fees their apps generate.

Real-world usage
earlyThe chain runs reliably, but DeFi deposits have fallen from over $1 billion in 2025 to roughly $18 million as of October 2026, so live use is limited.
Token necessity
essentialS is the only gas token on Sonic and the asset validators must stake, with at least 500,000 S needed to run a validator.
Decentralization
limitedAnyone meeting the stake minimum can run a validator, but Sonic Labs and its foundation have controlled the treasury, discretionary token issuance and the legacy Opera validators, and the company still sets strategy.
Track record
developingSonic launched in December 2024 on technology inherited from Fantom (founded 2018); the Fantom ecosystem took roughly a third of the losses in the July 2023 Multichain bridge collapse, and a March 2026 client update caused an accidental fork that left nodes on older software out of sync while the chain kept producing blocks.

How we rate

What it’s used for

Users pay fees in S to swap, lend and move stablecoins in apps on Sonic, and holders delegate S to validators through the MySonic portal to earn staking rewards. Developers register their contracts for Fee Monetization to collect part of the gas their apps consume. Onchain activity has shrunk sharply since a mid-2025 peak, and Sonic Labs is now steering toward payments, tokenization and licensing its core software.

Role of the S token:

gasstaking securitygovernance

Evidence of real use

  • Sonic's documentation says apps registered for Fee Monetization can earn 90% of the network fees they generate, with 10% going to validators. Source
  • DefiLlama shows value locked in Sonic DeFi peaking near $1.14 billion in May 2025 and about $18 million on October 9, 2026. Source
  • In a letter dated September 21, 2026, Sonic Labs said it was cancelling every manual S mint, keeping only the automated mint that pays validator rewards, and had commissioned an independent audit of the S supply and its reporting. Source
  • Sonic mainnet launched on December 18, 2024, with FTM upgradeable to S at a 1:1 rate through the MySonic portal. Source

How Sonic works

Sonic is a layer 1 blockchain that runs the Ethereum Virtual Machine, so Solidity smart contracts and wallets such as MetaMask work with little change. Validators agree on the order of transactions using an asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerant (aBFT) protocol built on a graph of events, which lets blocks become final in under a second rather than after many confirmations. Sonic Labs advertised up to 10,000 transactions per second when the network launched in December 2024 and now claims more than 400,000; both figures are the company's own. Validators must lock at least 500,000 S, and holders can delegate S to them, with a 14-day wait to withdraw.

Sonic took over from Fantom Opera. When the mainnet went live on December 18, 2024, FTM holders could upgrade to S at 1:1; the two-way swap ended in March 2025, and exchanges such as Kraken converted customer balances in May 2025. To bring assets over from Ethereum, Sonic built its own bridge, the Sonic Gateway. It batches transfers and has a fail-safe: if it stops sending updates for 14 days, users can reclaim bridged assets on Ethereum.

Fee Monetization, or FeeM, is Sonic's twist on gas. When you pay a fee in S, 10% goes to validators and the rest flows to a fee contract, and apps registered in the program can claim up to 90% of the fees their contracts used. Off-chain oracles track how much gas each app consumed. The goal is to pay developers for the traffic they bring, much like ad-revenue sharing, instead of pushing them to launch their own chains.

Key moments

  1. 2018The Fantom Foundation, the organization that later becomes Sonic Labs, is founded.
  2. 2023In July, the Multichain bridge collapse drains about $210 million across several chains; roughly a third of the losses hit the Fantom ecosystem.
  3. 2024Sonic mainnet launches on December 18 and FTM holders begin upgrading to S at 1:1.
  4. 2025Holders approve a US expansion plan in August covering an ETF effort, a Nasdaq-listed treasury vehicle and a Sonic USA entity; about 472 million S are issued for it on September 4.
  5. 2026Directors Michael Kong, Andre Cronje and David Richardson leave the Sonic Labs board in June and Matt Visser becomes CEO; on September 21 the company says it is cancelling manual S mints, ships the V2.2 upgrade and commissions an independent supply audit.

Supply

S has no hard cap. It began as a 1:1 swap of the FTM supply, then added issuance for a 190.5 million S airdrop program, a planned 47.625 million S yearly growth fund, and about 472 million S in September 2025 for US expansion. In 2026, new management skipped that year's growth mint and said only automated validator rewards will create new S, while roughly 32.69 million unclaimed airdrop tokens become burnable after October 15, 2026.

Risks to understand

  • Supply questions: an independent audit of the S supply and how it was reported was still pending in early October 2026, and past discretionary issuance diluted holders.
  • Shrinking usage: value locked in Sonic DeFi had fallen more than 95 percent from its May 2025 peak by October 2026, which weakens the fee base that FeeM and validators rely on.
  • Leadership and governance turnover: Sonic Labs changed chief executives twice in under a year and three longtime directors, including Andre Cronje and Michael Kong, left the board in June 2026, while key decisions remain with the company.
  • Bridge and software risk: the Fantom ecosystem was badly hurt by the 2023 Multichain collapse, and a March 2026 client update knocked nodes running older software out of sync.
  • Price volatility: S fell roughly 97 percent from its January 2025 high by mid-2026.

Sonic FAQ

Is Sonic the same as Fantom?

Sonic is the successor network built by the same organization, formerly the Fantom Foundation. FTM can be upgraded to S at 1:1, and in June 2026 Sonic Labs said the old Opera chain would keep running at least through the end of 2026.

How does Sonic's Fee Monetization work?

Apps register their contracts, and when users pay gas in S, up to 90% of the fees those contracts consume can be claimed by the app, with 10% going to validators.

Can I stake S?

Yes. You can delegate S to a validator through the MySonic portal; withdrawals take 14 days, and a penalty on your validator for misconduct can affect your delegated stake.

Is there a Sonic ETF in the US?

We found no S ETF trading in the US as of October 2026; Sonic Labs said in December 2025 that no S had been minted for the ETF allocation approved earlier that year, and in September 2026 it said every manual mint was being cancelled, although its token documentation still describes the ETF issuance as possible. US residents can buy S on exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken.

Sources

  1. Sonic Mainnet Launch: EVM-Compatible, Verifiable 10,000 TPS, and Sub-Second Finality — Sonic Labs
  2. Fee Monetization — Sonic Labs
  3. S Token — Sonic Labs
  4. Day 100 - Where We Are, And Where We're Headed. — Sonic Labs
  5. Sonic Airdrop Burn and Final Claim Deadline — Sonic Labs
  6. Andre Cronje leaves Sonic board as token slump sparks overhaul — crypto.news
  7. Fantom Foundation Awarded Default Judgement Against Multichain — Fantom Foundation
  8. Sonic chain TVL — DefiLlama

Last reviewed October 10, 2026. Written by . Utility Lens ratings are editorial judgments, not investment advice. Market data from CoinGecko. Spot an error? Request a correction.

About the author

Dave McNaught has worked in IT since 1999 and founded All Business Technologies (ABT) in 2003, a Boston-area firm providing Managed IT, Cybersecurity, Managed AI, Web Design and App Development. He publishes The Crypto Guide.

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