Sonic Labs

Headquartered in South Korea, Sonic Labs (formerly Fantom Foundation) offers a proof-of-stake blockchain protocol that is compatible with “directed acyclic graph” (DAG)-based smart contracts. It provides users with an open-source, modular architecture to enable the customization of blockchains for digital assets. Its consensus mechanism, named Lachesis, can scale to many nodes and connect to any distributed ledger. It is also compatible with Ethereum via the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) and does not use delegated proof of stake or “Masternodes.” Developers can therefore use the protocol to import their existing Ethereum-based dApps on the Fantom Opera mainnet.

As of April 2024, over 250 dApps have been launched using the protocol. The platform also launched a number of network upgrades in June 2022, including the implementation of all London EIP-1559 changes and a variation of the consensus mechanism called Lachesis Light Repeater that boosts speed by storing the minimum information on the chain. Additionally, the updates also included a solution to lower the time needed for validators to join the network named “Snapsync.”

The protocol also plans to launch “Sonic,” a major upgrade to the platform, in 2024. The upgrade will feature a new virtual machine called the Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), which will reportedly increase its transaction throughput to 2048 transactions per second (TPS); new database storage, which reduces storage requirements by up to 90%; and an optimized Lachesis consensus mechanism, which lowers collateral requirements for stakers.

Key customers and partnerships

In September 2021, the company partnered with Bware Labs, a blockchain API services provider, to enable developers on Fantom to create a blockchain API and connect their dApps to its network.