Sophon, the public chain breaker: seeking a real growth engine with "AI + consumption chain"

Author: momo, ChainCatcher

During the last bull market cycle, the problems exposed by Ethereum such as transaction congestion and high transaction fees have given new generation public chains such as Solana a breakthrough, challenging Ethereum's dominance through performance optimizations such as "faster and cheaper".

However, during this bull market cycle, Ethereum and Ethereum killers are facing new dilemmas.

Encrypted native application scenarios such as DeFi are difficult to reach ordinary users due to complexity and high thresholds; although the popularity of memecoin has brought a short burst of explosion to public chains such as Solana, users come and go quickly. After the craze fades, these public chains still need to face the theme of "who will consume".

As public chains face the pain point of long-term lack of value applications, a new generation of public chains led by Sophon has emerged.

According to RootData data, Sophon was founded by Sebastien (Seb), the former head of DeFi, the former head of zkSync, and has received over 10 million US dollars in support from YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), OKX Ventures, HTX Ventures, Spartan Group, SevenX Ventures and others.

Sophon focuses on the positioning of the consumer chain and uses AI as an important tool to try to open up a real growth curve for the public chain. Different from the technical orientation of traditional public chains, Sophon's AI layout focuses on user experience as the core, and through the integration of AI with consumption scenarios such as transactions, games, and socialization, it will build a user-centric AI blockchain ecosystem.

Recently, Sophon announced the $5 million SIA (Sophon Intelligence Agency) plan to support the implementation of experiments on the AI ​​chain. Sophon has cooperated with innovative projects such as Aethir, Beam, Anomaly, ScorePlay, and SPHNX that integrate AI+Crypto.

Why does Sophon focus on "AI +Crypto"?

In addition to having powerful technology, the new generation of public chains that can break through the siege is more important to find a construction direction with long-term value and allow the fist-level products that meet market demand (PMF) to be born on their chain.

And under this cycle, one consensus is that AI+Crypto is the most valuable depression in the long term besides stablecoins/payments.

Although AI+Crypto is in the extremely early stage of experiments, it is also questioned whether it is just a flash in the pan. But from the first principle, the strong combination of AI and Crypto's core capabilities can indeed provide users with a better experience. It can be said that the integration of AI and Crypto will define the next generation of consumer-oriented application forms.

It is an indisputable fact that AI is reshaping the Internet experience at present. If AI can rework all online industries, Crypto can empower all AI.

The core capabilities of AI lie in data processing, predictive analysis and automated decision-making. Through intelligent assistants, personalized recommendations, automated transactions, etc., it can lower the threshold for users to enter the blockchain and simplify the interactive process, thereby promoting the large-scale adoption of blockchain technology in consumer scenarios such as entertainment, games, and social networking.

Crypto's core advantages lie in decentralization, transparency, incentive mechanisms and trustless collaboration. It can help the AI ​​industry solve the pain points faced by centralized monopoly, ineconomical computing cost, and opacity.

AI+Crypto ultimately needs to reshape the user experience, which coincides with Sophon's positioning and original intention. As a consumption chain, Sophon hopes to improve the online experience of ordinary users through blockchain technology, not only attracting encrypted native users, but also non-encrypted native mass consumers.

Therefore, Sophon 's AI layout is not a short-term follow-up hot spot, but reconstructs the way users interact with digital culture through AI agents, computing power networks and low-threshold products, which is unique in deeply integrating AI into blockchain native scenarios, rather than just as an additional function.

For Sophon, it is more conducive to gaining the first-mover advantage in the future AI+Crypto explosion to build a long-term moat.

" Three-pronged approach" to support innovation on the AI ​​chain

Sophon is currently trying to become an ideal platform to empower AI +Crypto innovators from three dimensions: capital, technology and ecological resources.

In terms of financial support , Sophon's US$5 million SIA (Sophon Intelligence Agency) plan directly funding projects that meet the requirements.

In terms of technology , Sophon is also becoming a popular platform for AI projects and developers.

Sophon is built on ZK Stack with zkSync and uses modular Rollup and Validium architectures to provide AI projects with a technical foundation such as high throughput, low cost and scalability, solving the pain points faced by AI+Crypto applications or infrastructures usually deal with large amounts of data and frequent interactions.

For example, the decentralized computing power head project Aethir handles the high-frequency trading needs of AI model training, inference and cloud games; the AI ​​game project Anomaly drives high-frequency interaction between non-player characters (NPCs) and real players, and supports ScorePlay sports prediction market platform for real-time data analysis and prediction, all based on the Sophon architecture that supports processing thousands of transactions per second, real-time interaction or transactions are achieved.

With Sophon's Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) technology, transaction fees are also greatly reduced, so developers do not need to worry about the high-frequency transaction costs of AI applications.

In addition, Sophon's native account abstraction and Gas-free trading features also improve the ease of use of AI applications. Sophon's "Elastic Chain" design enables cross-chain interoperability through Hyperbridges, and also ensures that AI projects can seamlessly access data and resources from other chains within the Sophon ecosystem.

For example, Anomaly's core AI product Nova uses the Sophon account abstract to create smart contract wallets for users, allowing AI agents to automatically perform on-chain operations (such as character behavior in games and recommendation generation in social interaction). Users do not need to manage private keys, and interact with AI agents through simple social login like Web2 platforms such as Google or Discord, which greatly reduces the threshold for ordinary users' participation.

In terms of ecological expansion , Sophon aims to enhance consumer-level applications such as on-chain games and on-chain prediction through AI technology; on the other hand, it also provides support for decentralized AI computing power and data ecological projects. It has currently cooperated with more than 20 projects in various sub-tracks to complete the positions of various important ecological niches.

In terms of consumer-level applications driven by AI, Sophon currently has the deepest layout on the AI ​​gaming platform, and has achieved in-depth integration with multiple projects such as Beam, Anomaly, and zentry. Among them, Sophon is a strategic partner of Beam's $150 million gaming fund and accelerator. Game projects such as Animix within the Beam ecosystem are run through Sophon's infrastructure. Beam’s BeamAI project provides AI-driven gaming capabilities to the Sophon ecosystem.

In addition, Sophon is also actively expanding prediction platforms that attract mass consumers, and has reached cooperation with emerging prediction platforms such as ScorePlay and Rivalry.

In the AI ​​computing power layer, Sophon is an important partner of Aethir, the head network for decentralized GPU cloud computing, providing it with technical support to improve computing services, while Aethir provides high-performance computing support for Sophon's AI and gaming ecosystem.

In addition, Sophon also provides strong resource support for ecological projects through strategic cooperation. Through Aethir collaboration, Sophon's AI project can receive up to $1 million in computing resources to support the training and operation of AI models.

The Sophon Foundation is also involved in Tactical Compute, an estimated $40 million AI computing program project, providing an AI+Crypto potential collaboration network for ecological projects.

**Sophon 's growth potential under the "blue ocean" of the AI ​​consumer

market**

Based on the AI-driven consumer market layout, the team's technical background and financial strength, Sophon has still achieved good results since its launch while the public chain is collectively showing a decline.

According to Dune’s panel data, Sophon has sold about 121,000 network nodes and raised more than $60 million. According to official information, after the main network was launched last year, Sophon's total TVL exceeded US$500 million through the pledge plan.

Recently, Sophon announced that it will launch an important strategic product, Sophon OS . Sophon OS is an encrypted consumer experience operating system that contains five core components:

• Sophon Home (Discovery and Interaction Center): As a unified entrance, it provides an exploration center for application-like stores, supporting personalized recommendations, dynamic tracking and digital identity management;
• Sophon Account (Identity and Transaction Management): It is an account system that can be accessed across applications across the entire network, allowing users to interact with the chain to be simple and convenient and have real control. It provides users with multiple ways to log in (such as Google accounts, Passkey), flexible security rules settings and social recovery functions.
• Sophon+ (reward and reputation system): Integrate reward and reputation system to enhance user stickiness;
• ZK-stack-based blockchain: protects privacy and performance through zero-knowledge proof technology;
• Social Oracles (zkTLS-driven data center): Use zkTLS technology to achieve trusted interaction between on-chain and off-chain data.

Through the collaborative operation of the above five core components, Sophon OS is committed to simplifying encryption operations into a smooth "click-to-use" experience, where users can manage assets and participate in on-chain applications like using ordinary apps.

For example, through Sophon Home intelligent recommendation games, DeFi and other services, users do not need to jump across platforms or handle wallet interactions; Sophon Account allows users to perform custom transaction permissions such as daily limits and confirmation of whitelists, and ensure security through social recovery mechanisms, while achieving identity universality across applications.

Sophon Account has been launched, and it will be fully launched in the Sophon ecosystem, supporting multiple scenario applications such as games, content and digital culture.

According to official documents, Sophon OS will also release technical documents to attract developers to build applications based on OS, and at the same time plan to cooperate with mainstream brands in the entertainment and consumption fields to explore the implementation of encrypted gameplay in public scenarios.

At present, the consumer market driven by AI + Crypto is in its early experimental stage and is still a huge blue ocean market. The team's strategic vision, technical background and financial support may support Sophon to stay more steadily and for longer in the future.

Strategically, Sophon founder Seb mentioned in a public interview that Sophon’s goal is not to directly provide the final product, but to focus on creating platforms and products that support users’ self-expression. The goal is to make everything simple and intuitive like Web2 applications. This is also the only way for Crypto field to break through the user scale.

Technically, as the head of DeFi at zkSync, Seb leads the development and ecological integration of decentralized financial applications. His experience provides core competitiveness for Sophon's technical architecture (ZK Stack and Validium based on zkSync), allowing Sophon to quickly deploy ZK chains that support high-throughput applications to expand entertainment and AI scenarios.

In terms of funding, Sophon received more than US$10 million in support from top investment institutions such as YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs) and OKX Ventures through two rounds of financing, and also raised US$60 million through node sales, which also provides important support for the long-term construction in the AI-driven consumer market.

In the wave of integration of AI and Crypto, Sophon has shown potential to break through with its consumption chain positioning and AI technology layout. Sophon is also building its own competitive advantage in this uncertain experiment with its technical architecture, financial support and ecological expansion capabilities.

However, AI+Crypto is still in the early stage of exploration, and there are still challenges such as technological maturity and market acceptance. Whether Sophon can continue to make breakthroughs in challenges in the future is still worthy of the market test.