Sony’s Expansive Web3 Steps
- After announcing plans to develop a public blockchain almost a year ago, today Sony confirmed it has built the new blockchain, Soneium, which will soon launch a testnet. Last year the Japanese giant invested in and partnered with Startale Labs, the founder of the Astar Network.
- Sony owns 90% of the Singapore joint venture, Sony Block Solution Labs, which built Soneium.
- Sony rightly points out that there are many web3 use cases that haven’t gained traction with the public.
- Apart from its own content, it also wants to empower creators and developers.
- “We believe that the watershed moment for the entire Web3 industry will be whether we, as companies involved in Web3, can truly provide solutions that billions of people use as a matter of course in their daily lives and make Web3 mainstream in the next few years,” said Sota Watanabe, Director of Sony Block Solution Labs.
- We believe that 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 tech perspective, Startale’s Astar Network is built as a Polkadot parachain. However, Soneium will be a layer 2 (L2) Ethereum blockchain using Optimism technology, the same tech used by Coinbase’s Base blockchain.
- From previous announcements, Sony’s web3 ambitions also encompass the metaverse.
- 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 which is recently rebranded to S.BLOX. In the meantime, Sony Bank has launched a web3 app where it’s using NFTs as incentives. It’s also exploring a stablecoin on the Polygon blockchain. Once Soneium is live, we’re guessing all that will move to Soneumi.