Vitalik Buterin Applauds Sony’s Ethereum L2 Soneium — ‘Great for Businesses and Users’

• Sony’s Soneium mainnet has finally launched.
• The blockchain has received high praise from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
• Soneium marks Sony’s first major step into the world of Web3.

After over 47 million transactions carried out in its public testnet, Sony finally announced  the mainnet launch of its Soneium blockchain on Tuesday, Jan. 14—and it has received high praise from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Soneium’s mainnet launch follows the successful release of Ethereum-based Layer 2’s testnet debut in August last year, which saw 15.4 million active wallet addresses created.

Vitalik Buterin Praise

Following Soneium’s launch, Buterin shared his positive thoughts on the blockchain . The influential figure praised Sony’s foray into Web3 as “a good live demonstration of how launching an Ethereum L2 is great for businesses *and* users.”

“Businesses can make very fine-grained choices around how much control they keep vs give to users,” Buterin said. “But whatever rules they choose, that’s what the rules are. Everything is onchain, transparent, and auditable by third parties.”

The comments come after some users complained they were unable to transact in two meme coins called Aibo and Toro, the names of which related to a line of Sony-produced robotic dogs from the 90s and a Playstation mascot.

Reports stated that the smart contracts were “forbidden” on the platform.

However, Soneium  posted on X that it had instead taken “steps to safeguard intellectual property” by placing “temporary restrictions on certain contracts.”

Buterin praised this system, explaining that while you could create a “very closed system” or a “fully open system,” Sony had effectively made a “system where users know they can send a transaction on the L2 if they need to.”

“But there’s a large speed bump—the sequencer can throttle but not censor.”

“This is all free market at play,” Buterin said.

Buterin said the main thing needed for an ecosystem is to ensure that “a critical mass of financial activity happens in fully open environments.”

And that “enough tools are available for users to understand the properties of the onchain environments they are spending their time in.”

Soneium Mainnet Launches

Sony Block Solutions Labs’ (Sony BSL) said the newly launched blockchain will work on expanding new interactive experiences that integrate digital and physical user experience.

“We’re igniting a movement to transcend social, economic, and regional barriers—empowering every idea to thrive and building an internet where value flows freely and fairly,” Sony BSL said.

Along with the mainnet launch, Sony BSL has also revealed new projects, including an NFT-based Fan Marketing Platform.

The NFT-based marketing platform will provide the tools for “creators, brands, and enterprises” to use NFTs to “reward fans and optimize marketing strategies with data analysis.”

Minato Joins Superchain

Sony BSL’s Soneium Minato public testnet joined the Optimism Superchain to further Sony’s mission of bringing Web3 to the mainstream in October.

The Optimism Superchain is a collective framework of interconnected chains using Optimism’s OP Stack.

By joining the Superchain, Soneium Minato was able to connect with different blockchains. This significantly benefits developers who are building projects that want to leverage the strengths of various chains without building unique integrations for each.

Sony BSL confirmed that applications developed in Soneium Minato can run seamlessly on the mainnet due to its network specifications closely matching.

The Superchain also offers a suite of tools  for developers, including simplified onboarding processes, which provides further accessibility to decentralized application development.

“With Soneium Minato, developers can build any dapp and actively contribute to the Superchain’s growth and help scale Ethereum,” Soneium said . 

Soneium Success

In a post on X , Startale Labs CEO Sota Watanabe previously celebrated some of Minato’s milestones, including the creation of 250 thousand smart contracts deployed since its inception less than two months ago.

“More than 40 projects have been chosen at Soneium Spark from 1780 applications and are preparing for their launch,” Watanabe said.

The Minato testnet was a key component of Sony’s strategy to leverage its extensive ecosystem—ranging from entertainment to gaming—to accelerate the adoption of Web3 technologies.

“Soneium Minato offers a fast and cost-effective development environment, providing tools that are compatible with Ethereum, which is widely used for existing Web3 app development,” the company previously wrote  in a blog post.

As part of the joint announcement in August, Sony said it aimed to make Web3 technologies accessible to new audiences through its massive distribution network and simplify Web3 efficiency with apps covering gaming, finance, entertainment, and more.

Sony’s First Step Into Blockchain

Soneium marks Sony’s first major step into the world of Web3. The launch and initial success of the blockchain has signaled a wave of returning interest and investment from major corporations in the technology.

Sony said  Soneium’s mainnet will offer users free access to its applications and Web3 services, allowing for a higher rate of mainstream adoption.

“The new blockchain unites leading web3 projects and infrastructure pioneers, including Astar Network, Circle, Chainlink, Alchemy, and The Graph to bridge the gap between decentralized innovation and everyday consumer applications in entertainment, gaming, and finance,” Sony SBL said.