[ARFC] Deploy Aave on Soneium

[ARFC] Deploy Aave on Soneium

Author: ACI

Date: 2025-02-27

ARFC updated with latest Risk Params 2025-03-14

Summary

This proposal advocates for the deployment of Aave on Soneium, an Ethereum L2 developed by Sony Block Solutions Labs (a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation and Startale Group).

The proposal aims to provide general background information to gauge the community’s interest in the opportunity to deploy Aave V3 on Soneium. Previous [TEMP CHECK] Deploy Aave on Soneium and Snapshot have passed.

Motivation

This deployment proposal is an opportunity to tap into a consumer-focused Ethereum L2 and utilize Sony’s distribution channels and access to real-world consumers. Built with OP Stack, Soneium offers a scalable, low-cost, and highly interoperable infrastructure for DeFi protocols. The deployment would integrate Aave into an Ethereum L2 designed for mainstream adoption, potentially tapping into Sony’s user base and an upcoming dynamic ecosystem of DeFi, gaming, NFTs, RWAs, and entertainment applications.

The proposal includes an ecosystem-wide liquidity incentive campaign, targeting a 7-figure USD commitment (100,000,000 ASTR) to support DeFi protocols, including Aave, to bootstrap liquidity on Soneium. Soneium is also willing to integrate and increase the adoption of GHO stablecoin in its ecosystem, especially for future real-world-focused use cases.

Sony Block Solution Labs believes that the development of a comprehensive Web3 solution based on blockchain technology has big potential for the company, which has developed a wide variety of businesses as part of its purpose to “fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology”.

Soneium launched its mainnet on January 14, 2025, settled 10M+ on-chain transactions with 2M+ unique wallet addresses as shown on Blockscout, and achieved $45M+ total value secured according to L2Beat, within 3 weeks. Soneium has also launched the Soneium Spark Incubation Program, attracting over 1,700 builders and projects. The participating Sony Group Companies include Sony Group, Sony Music, Sony Pictures, Sony Innovation Fund, Inzone, and Sony Global Education. Please refer to here for the list of winners of the first Soneium Spark.

We see DeFi as the backbone of blockchain adoption and is built with a vibrant DeFi ecosystem that promises to be both innovative and robust, featuring a well-rounded mix of multichain and native protocols. Notable names including Uniswap v4, Velodrome, QuickSwap, Stargate, Squid, Lido, Mellow, StakeStone, KelpDAO, Solv, OpenEden, etc. Our Soneium Spark program also incubated several standout projects that will be launching as native DeFi protocols on Soenium, bringing unique features and services to our users, including Kyo Finance (AMM), SoneX (AMM), SuperVol (On-chain Options), WaveX (Perpetuals), Macaron Finance (Leveraged Farming), etc.

In addition to the existing Web3 services, the Soneium team has been investigating how new services that collaborate with businesses within the Sony Group can be developed as Soneium-compatible apps. Specifically, we will explore protecting the rights of content created by creators, new mechanisms for distributing profits to support creators and fans, and opportunities for creators to be active across the digital and real worlds.

Furthermore, by utilizing Web3 services, such as the Japan-regulated crypto exchange operated by Sony Group’s S.BLOX Inc., and adding new value to the various businesses and utilizing IPs, we aim to create apps that can be used daily by people who have never had the opportunity to experience Web3, and to build a world where Web3 services permeate people’s daily lives.

Reasons for Integration:

  • Potential to tap into the existing users from the Sony ecosystem and further expand Aave user base with Soneium’s distribution networks and go mainstream together. Soneium settled 10M+ on-chain transactions with 2M+ unique wallet addresses and achieved $45M+ total value secured within 3 weeks after launch.
  • Establish Aave’s position as the major liquidity market and early mover on Soneium and capture a rapidly growing market in the ecosystem with a focus on real-world adoption (e.g. JPY-USD carry trade on-chain to explore, etc.)
    • We envision Soneium to be one of the most unique ecosystems in the crypto world that truly foster Web3 mainstream adoption utilising Sony’s distribution channels and business opportunities. We see Aave as an important and reliable partner to facilitate users’ demand in lending, borrowing, leveraging, and earning passive income.
  • Integrate closely with Soneium’s rapidly growing DeFi ecosystem, including strategic integrations with top-tier dApps like Uniswap, Velodrome, QuickSwap, Stargate, Squid, Lido, StakeStone, Mellow, Solv, OpenEden, etc. Soneium has been in the first batch of blockchains for Uniswap v4 deployment with Uniswap frontend supported by Uniswap Labs.
  • Operates in a high throughput, tps, and low gas fees environment based on OP Stack to provide a smooth UX and efficient lending experience. Soneium is also equipped with top-tier infrastructures including Chainlink, Pyth, RedStone, LayerZero, Axelar, Superbridge, Across, Hyperlane, Li.Fi, Jumper Exchange, The Graph, etc.
  • Receive liquidity incentives for Aave depositors in any upcoming ecosystem-wide liquidity incentive campaign on Soneium from now to the future and help Aave bootstrap liquidity on Soneium.
    • We have been working on a 100M-ASTR (worth of $4M now) liquidity incentive campaign for mainnet launch at the moment as a starter, which can include Aave if Aave’s deployment timeline aligns. More details can be found here.

Technical Feasibility

  1. Seamless Integration and Compatibility with v3:
  • Soneium is an EVM-equivalent Ethereum L2 built using OP Stack, which means Ethereum smart contracts are fully compatible.
  1. Chainlink Integration:
  • Chainlink has deployed Chainlink Data Feeds and Chainlink Data Streams on Soneium, supporting a wide variety of assets including BTC, ETH, wstETH, USDC, etc.
  1. The Graph Integration:
  • The Graph has integrated with Soneium and has Full Protocol Support for data indexing on Soenum.
  1. Development and Testing
  • Startale Group will assist Aave’s technical team through its Integration and Support team to ensure a smooth integration.
  1. Security Audits:
  • Startale Group will cooperate with the Aave DAO in order to run audits to ensure that the deployment meets all security requirements, should this be requested by the DAO.

Deployment Plan

  1. Phase 1: Initial Discussion
  • Gather community feedback through this TEMP CHECK.
  1. Phase 2: Detailed Proposal
  • If the TEMP CHECK indicates positive support, submit a detailed ARFC (Aave Request for Comment) outlining the technical, economic, and security aspects of the integration.
  1. Phase 3: Implementation and Monitoring
  • Upon eventual approval, deploy Aave V3 on Soneium and monitor the integration closely to address any issues and ensure stability.

Risks and Mitigations:

  1. Technical Challenges:
  • Startale Group will work closely with Aave’s developers and service providers to address any technical challenges during integration.
  1. Security Risks:
  • We are open to conducting security and risk audits to identify and mitigate potential risks associated with this proposal and deployment. Startale Group will be available to address raised concerns, and support these potential audits.
  1. Community Adoption:
  • Soneium and Astar will activate its community to engage with the Aave community ensuring support and adoption. Also it will work aligned with the Aave community to engage and attract users to Soneium.

Specification:

Based on our analysis of TVL and other key metrics, asset data on Soneium is likely to experience significant fluctuations as deployment nears. Therefore, we will not be publishing initial asset parameters at this stage. Instead, we will assess real-time market conditions and provide the relevant parameters closer to deployment.

Asset Supply on Soneium Market Cap on Soneium 24H DEX Volume on Soneium Sell Liquidity SoneiumScan
WETH 6,397 $12.00M $3.97M $470K URL
USDC.e 14,798,955 $14.79M $4.31M $958K URL
USDT 2,011,410 $2.01M $309.30K $630K URL

Useful Links:

Soneium Website: https://soneium.org/

Soneium L2Beat: Soneium - L2BEAT

Soneium Blockscout: https://soneium.blockscout.com/

Soneium Defillama: https://defillama.com/chain/Soneium

Sony Block Solution Labs Website: Sony Block Solutions Labs Pte. Ltd.

Sony Web3 Solution: Launch of a comprehensive blockchain-centric Web3 solution

Startale Group Website: Startale

ACS Liquidity Incentive Campaign: Treasury Proposal for ACS Campaign - Treasury Proposals - Astar Forum

Aave Documentation: Aave Protocol Overview

[TEMP CHECK] Deploy Aave on Soneium

Snapshot

Disclaimer:

This proposal is powered by Skywards. The ACI is not directly affiliated with Soneium and did not receive any compensation for creating this proposal.

Next Steps

  1. Publish an ARFC to continue gathering community and Service Providers feedback, and escalate to ARFC Snapshot if conditions are met.
  2. If the ARFC snapshot outcome is YAE, publish an AIP vote for final confirmation and enforcement of the proposal.

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived under CC0.

4 Likes

This proposal certainly presents a unique opportunity for Aave to get early mover advantage and gain exposure to Soneiums/Sonys extensive real world distribution network.

Soneium’s early metrics—over 10 million transactions and 2 million unique wallets within three weeks of launch—suggest rapid growth, which is probably why such a young project is being considered for Aave at this stage of its development.

Sony’s involvement brings a unique angle, access to a mainstream consumer base via its extensive distribution networks in entertainment, gaming, and finance but what I’d like to know is how this could expand to its user base beyond the crypto-native audience?

Reading about potentially integrating Gho is exciting especially when you consider real-world applications like JPY-USD carry trades align with Aave’s goal of bridging DeFi with traditional finance, potentially increasing GHO adoption, I’m sure you’re already on it @TokenLogic !

My two primary concerns

Sony’s corporate involvement might introduce centralized decision-making or influence, clashing with Aave’s decentralized ethos
While Sony’s user base is vast, it’s unclear how many will transition to DeFi. Initial transaction volume might reflect speculative activity rather than genuine long-term use.

The DAO faces a strategic opportunity with Soneium that balances significant growth potential against inherent risks. The pros—mainstream exposure, liquidity incentives, and scalability—are compelling, especially given Sony’s backing and Soneium’s early traction.

However, the cons—adoption uncertainties, potential centralization, require careful mitigation through audits, which is why I’m waiting to see what Chaos and Llama identify in their risk assessments to help inform my decision.

If executed well, this could position Aave as a pioneer in bridging DeFi with real-world applications and that’s what makes this such a potentially exciting opportunity for the Dao.

4 Likes

Thank you for showing interest and support for the proposal @MrKris. This is NK from Startale Group, and we are core contributor of Soneium together with Sony Group.

For your first concern on centralized governance, I would like to highlight the fact that Soneium is being built by Sony Block Solutions Labs, a joint venture between Sony Group and Startale Group. Startale Group is Web3 native development company and also a core contributor of Astar, one of the largest parachain ecosystems expanding into Ethereum ecosystem via Soneium and broader superchain ecosystem. Furthermore, Soneium core team is actively participating in Optimism Superchain governance.

About the concern of the second part, Soneium has been already onboarding meaningful number of ecosystem projects and users, while also making progress in liquidity onboard. As most other ecosystems are, some of stats would be arising from speculations while others would be organic. In the short term our focus is oriented toward existing Web3 community whereas we are working on the adoption of distribution channels and use cases from Sony & other global enterprises for mid to long term growth. There have been already multiple use cases announced on Soneium and we have many more exciting use cases launching in coming months.

Our long term vision is to build internet for entertainment and to do so, we believe it is crucial for the ecosystem to establish strong fundamentals starting from DeFi ecosystem. Looking forward to hearing more feedbacks from Aave DAO.

Summary

LlamaRisk supports Aave V3’s deployment on Soneium, although, at this very early stage, the network has a TVL of around $50 million and limited activity in segments beyond its initial DEX usage. Soneium is built on the OP Stack, which provides full EVM compatibility, rapid 2-second block times, and shared security across interoperable OP chains. The absence of timelock delays on OP Stack contract upgrades means that protocol changes can occur instantly without prior notice. Additionally, Soneium can censor contracts at the RPC level and relies on a centralized sequencer, which raises questions regarding network decentralization. Moreover, the ecosystem currently depends solely on bridge variants for token issuance—particularly for stablecoins like USDC and USDT—introducing third-party risks in the absence of native token issuance on the chain.

We will continue monitoring Soneium activity and provide revised asset recommendations as we move toward potential deployment.

1. Network Fundamental Characteristics

1.1 Network Overview

Soneium is an Ethereum layer 2 developed by Sony Block Solutions Labs. Built on the OP Stack, Soneium is part of a network of OP chains within Optimism’s Superchain ecosystem. These chains benefit from cross-chain interoperability, shared security, and an enhanced communication layer that improves scalability.

Source: OP chain architecture, L2BEAT

Soneium’s block time is set to 2 seconds. This EVM-compatible chain deploys its own set of L1 contracts, which enables smart contract deployment on Soneium without modification when migrating from L1 to L2.

The Optimism Collective (Optimism governance) is solely responsible for upgrading or modifying the core OP Stack smart contracts. The Optimism Security Council manages the implementation, and upgrades are executed without a timelock. Additionally, the OP Stack security model employs fault proofs through a permissionless proposal and challenge process that uses the DisputeGameFactory and FaultDisputeGame contracts.

The OP Stack software dependencies include Git, Go, Node, pnpm, Foundry, Make, and jq. Specific version details are available here. To date, 11 audits have been conducted on the OP Stack contracts, and the reports are available here.

An Optimism bug bounty program worth $2m provides security incentives for the general codebase. No specific bug bounties have been identified for Soneium.

Risk considerations:

  • There is no delay on upgrades (regular and emergency); while this may help in the event of necessary speed, it gives users no time to opt-out.

1.2 Decentralization and Legal Evaluation

The Optimism Collective consists of two branches: the Token House and the Citizens’ House. The Token House comprises OP token holders responsible for submitting, discussing, and voting on governance proposals. The Citizens’ House works alongside the Token House and comprises elected individuals representing Optimism stakeholders. It is responsible for allocating Retro Funding and can veto protocol upgrade proposals from the Token House.

Given this governance composition and the structure of the Superchain, the Optimism Collective is diverse and comprises communities from multiple OP chains.

Optimism Councils consist of elected representatives who manage the Collective’s resources and make decisions for stakeholders and citizens. The Security Council is entrusted with controlling the keys required to:

  1. Upgrade the L1 protocol contracts for all OP chains participating in the Superchain.
  2. Modify designations for certain critical roles in the system, such as sequencers, proposers, challengers, and membership on the Security Council multisig.

Upgrades to OP chain contracts are performed through a ProxyAdmin contract. A 2/2 nested multisig serves as the contract owner and is jointly governed by a 10/13 multisig, managed by the Optimism Security Council, and a 5/7 multisig, managed by the Optimism Foundation.

A key contract for OP Stack networks is the SystemConfig contract. This contract manages chain configurations stored on L1 and relayed to L2 as part of the chain derivation process. For example, the contract contains the Sequencer address as well as references to other contract addresses for the chain.

Soneium operates a sequencer node that collects, validates, records, and aggregates transactions for submission on Ethereum, generating network revenue from sequencer fees. The sequencer is managed through Sony’s infrastructure through Sony Security Compliance. Soneium has indicated that the OP Security Council holds access keys for parameter modifications, with any changes requiring council approval. Additionally, OP chain sequencers are restricted regarding the duration for which transactions can be withheld.

OP chains operate under a standardized revenue-sharing model, where a portion of sequencer revenues is returned to the Optimism Collective. The fee split is calculated as the greater of either 2.5% of chain revenue or 15% of on-chain profit (defined as fee revenue minus L1 gas fees).

Blacklisting Incident

Following the mainnet launch, Soneium blacklisted several meme coins that violated its content guidelines for copyright and intellectual property. Although user funds were not frozen, the blacklisting limited the ability to trade or access these tokens on the network.

According to a Soneium blog post, these actions are executed at the RPC level for specific contracts, implemented temporarily, and are fully reversible. The restrictions are lifted once compliance is met, based on an assessment by a Soneium committee composed of core team members.

Risk Considerations

  • Soneium’s capacity to restrict contracts based on copyright and intellectual property violations aligns with its content guidelines but illustrates that censorship controls remain centralized.

Legal Overview

Soneium Sequencer Terms of Service outline the legal agreement between users and Sony Block Solutions Labs Pte. Ltd. (SBS Labs), the company providing the Soneium Sequencer service. The Terms explicitly state that SBS Labs does not control Soneium, the Optimism Collective, or the Optimism Security Council. They also do not manage or hold custody over users’ digital assets on Soneium.

The service SBS Labs provides involves collecting, validating, recording, and aggregating transactions on Soneium for submission to Ethereum. They generate blocks on Soneium, offering immediate confirmations to users before transactions are finalized on Ethereum. While they reserve the right to charge fees for this service, they are non-refundable and collected once a transaction is successfully processed on Soneium.

SBS Labs emphasizes that they are not responsible for Bridging Contracts, which are developed and managed by external parties, and SBS Labs neither controls nor has access to the assets locked within them. Similarly, any tokens issued on Soneium are deployed by third parties and are not associated with SBS Labs.

SBS Labs is a Singapore-based company established in October 2023. It operates as an Exempt Private Company Limited by Shares under Unique Entity Number (UEN) 202342003W, issued by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) of Singapore. Its principal activity is information technology consultancy, excluding cybersecurity. The company is a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation, holding a 90% stake, and Startale Labs Pte. Ltd., holding the remaining 10%.

Startale Labs specializes in developing Web3 infrastructure and has a track record of collaboration with the Astar Foundation on multi-chain applications and infrastructure. Investors in Startale Labs include Sony Network, Samsung NEXT, Signum Capital, and UOB Venture Management.

IP Protection

Soneium’s IP and Contracts Protection policy addresses unauthorized use of intellectual property and potentially harmful contract addresses on the Soneium network. Tools like Blockaid are employed to identify malicious contract addresses that could jeopardize user safety or compromise network integrity.

When a potential violation is detected—such as the unauthorized use of a name or image owned by a third party—the corresponding contract address is added to the Suspected of IP Infringement list. No technical restrictions are imposed during the warning period, which typically lasts around 12 hours. This grace period allows the project team and users to respond to and address the concerns raised.

If the issue remains unresolved after the warning period, the contract address is escalated to the Restricted due to IP Infringement list. Contracts on this list face restrictions on the Soneium network, including RPC-level blocks, limited visibility on the Block Explorer, and exclusion from wallets. However, Soneium remains open to resolving these issues; if improvements are made to a restricted contract, its status can be reassessed, and labels may be updated or removed following a thorough review.

1.3 Activity Benchmarks

Source: Soneium Total Value Secured (TVS), L2BEAT, February 28, 2025.

The total Value Secured on Soneium as of February 28, 2025, amounted to $67.37 M. The majority of assets were externally bridged ($45.93M in ASTR, SolvBTC, YAYSTONE, YAYAGETH, wstETH, WBTC, and USDC) and the remainder were bridged canonically ($21.44M in USDT and WETH). Since the mainnet launch on January 14, TVS has steadily grown. Soneium does not have a native token at the time of writing.

Source: Soneium UOPS, L2BEAT, February 27, 2025.

User activity, measured by User Operations Per Second (UOPS) — which represents the number of actions bundled in a single transaction — has grown, indicating a steady increase in user engagement with the L2.

Source: Soneium TVL, DeFiLlama, February 28, 2025.

Total Value Locked (TVL) in Soneium protocols stands at $46.14M, with stablecoins accounting for $13.43M (29% of TVL). Protocol-locked assets represent a utilization rate of 68% of the L2’s assets.

2. Network Market Outlook

2.1 Market Infrastructure

According to DeFiLlama, 19 protocols have been deployed on Soneium. However, only 16 protocols currently have a recorded TVL:

  • Cross Chain Bridge: Stargate ($9.63m)
  • DEX: Kyo Finance ($11.43m), Velodrome ($4.22m), Sonex ($3.39m), SoneFi ($801,848), DyorSwap ($30,441), Sonus Exchange ($982,612), PassDEX ($13,020), Quickswap V3 ($200,974)
  • Lending: SakeFinance ($8.14m), UntitledBank ($2.85m), ZenoLend ($2,502)
  • SoFi: Yay! ($1.09m)
  • Derivatives: waveX ($622,206)
  • Yield Farming: SynStation ($2.73m)

Decentralized Exchanges and Lending are the most active DeFi categories based on the number of protocols and the recorded TVL. Given its recent launch (January 14, 2025), the number of reputed DeFi protocols is low—for example, Curve is not yet deployed. Notably, Uniswap V4 has recently been deployed on Soneium; however, no TVL was recorded at the time of writing.

Source: Soneium DEXs, Coingecko, February 28, 2025.

Tooling

  • Bridging/Interoperability Protocols: 16 bridging/interoperability protocols support Soneium (e.g., Orbiter Finance, Commet Protocol, Across, and Layerswap).
  • Wallets: 7 are listed as Soneium ecosystem members (e.g., Bitget, OKX Wallet, and TokenPocket). Soneium can be added as a custom network to any EVM-compatible wallet, such as MetaMask. Superchain Safe—a Safe fork—provides multisig support for all OP chains.
  • Payment Solutions: In addition to wallet integrations like MetaMask with fiat payment partners, 2 payment solution providers (Alchemy Pay and Transak) offer users the ability to onramp and offramp from Soneium.
  • RPC Node Services: RPC node services on Soneium include Alchemy, Dwellr, and The Graph (with Ava Protocol also providing RPC services).
  • Oracles/Data Services: Oracles and data services include Chainlink, API3, Band Protocol, Chainsight, eOracle, Pyth, Stork Network, and Terminal3.

The full list of Soneium ecosystem members and categories can be found here.

2.2 Liquidity Landscape

Astar, a Polkadot and Ethereum L2 that plans on merging with Soneium and is a Special Partner, announced an Astar Contribution Score (ACS) campaign with their ASTR token on Soneium.

The ACS aims to incentivize adoption and establish a sustainable economic flywheel for ASTR on Soneium (e.g., by providing liquidity). From February 20 to May 1, 2025, 100 million ASTR will be available for distribution.

Stablecoins

The stablecoin distribution on Soneium is as follows (as of February 17, 2025):

As mentioned in section 1.3, both tokens are bridged variants, and no native minting has occurred to date. USDC.e, which follows the Bridged USDC Standard, is a specification for deploying a bridged form of USDC on EVM blockchains, with the option for Circle to upgrade to native issuance in the future.

DEXs

Top 10 LPs by TVL on Soneium (as of February 28, 2025):

DEX Pool TVL 24h Volume
Velodrome Finance yaySTONE/WETH $2.54M $9.93K
Kyo Finance V3 USDC.e/WETH $2.06M $664.03K
Kyo Finance V3 vASTR/ASTR $2M $8.13K
Kyo Finance V3 ASTR/WETH $1.1M $1.13M
Velodrome Finance USDC.e/WETH $760.15K $539.4K
Kyo Finance V3 USDC.e/USDT $659.04K $236.11K
Velodrome Finance ASTR/WETH $652.47K $1.06M
Velodrome Finance USDT/USDC.e $641.77K $333.87K
Velodrome Finance ASTR/nsASTR $645.75K $21.09K
Kyo Finance V3 SONE/USDC.e $617.03K $47.62K

Source: Soneium Pools, Gecko Terminal

DEX liquidity for USDC, USDT, and WETH is approximately 1.1M, 1.2M, and 2,737 respectively.

Source: USDC.e & USDT swap against WETH with <5% slippage, Wowmax, March 1st, 2025.

The DEX liquidity for USDC.e on Soneium, within 5% slippage, is 390,000, while for USDT it is 322,000.

Overall liquidity is currently low, given the recent mainnet launch. Most liquidity and 24-hour volume are concentrated in Kyo Finance and Velodrome Finance. WETH is the only other significant “major” token, with $20M bridged (WBTC has also been bridged but in low quantity).

Lending Markets

Market participants in the lending market are limited to 3 protocols: SakeFinance, UntitledBank, and ZenoLend. SakeFinance is the clear market leader in lending, and USDC.e is the most borrowed asset.

Protocol Total Supplied Total Borrowed Utilization Supported Assets
SakeFinance $16,524,027 $7,826,192 47.36% 5
UntitledBank $2,077,769 $1,313,711 63.23% 4
ZenoLend $2,860.56 $446.47 15.61% 4

(as of February 28th, 2025)

2.3 Ecosystem Resilience

Users can withdraw from Soneium to Ethereum mainnet by submitting withdrawal proofs. Permissionless fraud proofs can be submitted to challenge proposals about the state of the chain in case of a fraudulent proposal.

All proposals are subject to a 1-week window, during which anyone with the op-challenger tool can participate. In addition, the Optimism Security Council holds the Guardian role as a final backstop in case of a failure of the fault-proof game (bonded).

Source: Fault Proof Game, Optimism Stack

Grant Programs

Soneium’s Spark grant/incubation program for projects building on Soneium accepted its first cohort in October 2024. The program includes mentorship, access to infrastructure, strategic partnerships, and a cash investment of up to $100,000.

Security Partners

Two security solution providers are used for monitoring and risk resolution. Tenderly and Sentio offer comprehensive monitoring and security solutions, including on-chain event alerts and response mechanisms.

2.4 Ecosystem Growth Potential

Developed by Sony Block Solutions Labs, Soneium is positioned as a general-purpose blockchain. Given Sony Group’s market position as a leading technology, entertainment, and digital services company, Soneium presents significant opportunities for integrating blockchain applications into existing Sony Group businesses (e.g., Gaming).

The “Go Mainstream with Soneium” launch slogan reflects Soneium’s focus on driving broader blockchain adoption that connects with business interests and existing IPs.

Additionally, the integration of the Astar Network enables Soneium to leverage Astar’s existing ecosystem and community for growth. ASTR is a key asset to incentivize ecosystem growth in DeFi, as facilitated by the ACS incentive campaigns (see section 2.2).

The Soneium team has communicated an overview of their current three-stage development roadmap (time agnostic):

  1. Staying up-to-date with the latest tech stack and upgrades: Pectra upgrade, Isthmus release, interop developments, etc.
  2. Supporting OP Labs with their roadmap: For instance, providing support for PeerDAS-related work.
  3. Developing Soneium-specific products: These products will support the development of an entertainment layer of the internet.

2.5 Major and Native Asset Outlook

Bridged versions of USDT and USDC are currently the only available stablecoins on the chain. As mentioned in section 1.3, Soneium does not have a native token and uses ETH as its gas token. A complete list of tokens issued or bridged on the chain can be found here.

Major assets present on Soneium (according to L2Beat, February 28th, 2025):

3. Onchain Discoverability

Sources of Soneium information include (but are not limited to):

Though still relatively new, Soneium has several trusted providers offering sources of visibility.

4. Impact of AAVE Deployment

Lending is the second-largest DeFi market on Soneium despite a relatively small TVL. Market competition is limited to SakeFinance UntitledBank (which solely operates on Soneium) and ZenoLend (which operates on multiple chains but has very low liquidity on Soneium). This allows AAVE to offer deeper liquidity as a market leader, attracting more interest from other users, projects, and assets, ultimately benefiting the chain’s overall growth.

The unique involvement of Sony signals a differentiated chain poised for greater mainstream adoption relative to other chains.

5. Asset suggestions

Our asset onboarding methodology is guided by three key criteria: prior successful integration and risk assessment within the Aave ecosystem, the asset’s TVL on the network, and its available liquidity relative to total TVL. Based on these factors, we recommend onboarding the following assets:

Asset Onchain Supply Liquidity Supply Cap
WETH 9,204 161 tbd
USDC.e 15.81M 0.39M tbd
USDT 2.14M 0.322M tbd

Due to these tokens being the most readily available and utilized on the chain, they have been selected as the initial proposed assets. Given the low liquidity and early stage of Sonenium. While ASTR is widely used within Soneium, it has not been considered because it has not been previously onboarded and requires a separate risk assessment. It should be noted that the assets recommended are bridged variants and, therefore, carry additional risks tied to third-party bridges.

Our asset, parameters, and caps recommendation will be revised as we get closer to a launch date.

Disclaimer

This review was independently prepared by LlamaRisk, a community-led non-profit decentralized organization funded in part by the Aave DAO. LlamaRisk is not directly affiliated with the protocol(s) reviewed in this assessment and did not receive any compensation from the protocol(s) or their affiliated entities for this work.

The information provided should not be construed as legal, financial, tax, or professional advice.

Overview

Chaos Labs supports the deployment of an Aave instance on Soneium. This report outlines Soneium’s technical aspects and associated risks.

Technical Architecture

Soneium is an Ethereum Layer-2 network built on the Optimism OP Stack. Its L2 infrastructure consists of an Optimism Rollup Node (op-node) and an execution engine (op-geth) working in tandem. The execution client, which is EVM-compatible, processes transactions, maintains the L2 state, and exposes standard JSON-RPC endpoints. Meanwhile, the Rollup Node derives L2 blocks from transactions posted on Ethereum L1, facilitates L1↔L2 messaging, and forwards block payloads to the execution client. Soneium achieves a 2-second block time, ensuring rapid transaction inclusion while relying on Ethereum for security and finality.


Superchain Node Architecture

In addition, Soneium is designed as part of Optimism’s Superchain, rather than operating as an isolated chain. By leveraging the OP Stack interface, it enables seamless interoperability with other OP-based chains through shared bridging and communication protocols, ensuring compatibility with common security and messaging standards across its sibling chains. The Superchain enhances horizontal scalability by implementing standardized gas markets, a modular proof system for withdrawals, and low-latency L2-to-L2 messaging. The modular proof system allows OP Chains to utilize both fault proofs for fraud detection and validity proofs for fast, cryptographic finality.


Superchain Structure

Decentralization

Currently, fewer than five external actors can submit challenges in Soneium’s dispute resolution process, raising concerns about centralization. A well-distributed set of challengers is critical to ensuring state validity, as a limited number of participants increases the risk of collusion or censorship. To verify this, we examined the Soneium L1 Stack DisputeGameFactoryProxy, the contract responsible for deploying dispute games, to analyze the distribution of challenge initiators.


Source: L2Beat

Our review of the contract’s event logs revealed that the majority of DisputeGameCreatedevents were initiated by a single address. This confirms L2Beat’s concern, as it indicates a highly centralized dispute process where a single entity has disproportionate control over state challenges. Such centralization undermines the integrity of fraud-proof mechanisms, increasing the risk of unchallenged invalid state finalization.

Tooling Availability

Soneium’s infrastructure includes RPC providers, multisig wallet solutions, block explorers, and price oracles to support protocol integration and enhance governance security. For RPC services, Soneium integrates with Startale Cloud Services (SCS), Alchemy, and Tenderly, providing both public and private RPC endpoints for transaction execution, state queries, and event tracking across Mainnet and Minato Testnet. To strengthen governance-controlled fund management and protocol treasury security, Soneium integrates Safe, a smart contract-based multisig wallet that requires multiple authorized signatures for transaction execution.

For on-chain data visibility, Soneium integrates Blockscout, OKX Explorer, and Routescan. Blockscout supports both Mainnet and Minato Testnet, enabling contract verification and transaction tracking, while Routescan indexes Superchain networks to ensure cross-chain data accessibility within the Superchain. Soneium also integrates Chainlink, API3, RedStone, Band Protocol, Pyth Network, and eOracle to provide secure price feeds, with additional oracle solutions in development.

Ecosystem and Market

Since its launch on January 14, 2025, Soneium’s TVL has shown a steady upward trend without any significant fluctuations. As of the time of writing, its total TVL stands at $49.23 million, indicating strong market demand.

The number of new transactions on Soneium has exhibited an overall upward trend, peaking at 2.6M daily transactions on February 25, 2025. While transaction volume has declined since then, it has remained stable at approximately 800K new transactions per day.


Soneium Daily New Transactions

The number of new verified contracts has remained consistently active since launch, peaking in late February 2025. Outside of this peak, the daily number of newly verified contracts has remained stable, averaging around 100 per day.


Soneium Daily New Verified Contracts

To incentivize user participation, Soneium has launched the Astar Contribution Score (ACS) campaign, allocating 100M ASTR tokens to encourage ecosystem engagement. Running from February 20 to May 30, 2025, users can earn ACS points by interacting with dApps, providing liquidity, and engaging in activities on Soneium. At the campaign’s conclusion, ACS points will be converted into ASTR tokens at a fixed rate.

Additionally, the Soneium Spark Incubation Program, launched by Sony Block Solutions Labs and Startale, offered up to $100,000 in funding, technical mentorship, and infrastructure support for blockchain developers. The program has now concluded, with one of its winners being Kyo Finance, which has since grown into the largest project on Soneium.

Besides Kyo Finance and the major DEXs with significant TVL that will be discussed in the next section, other notable projects on Soneium include Sake Finance, a lending and borrowing protocol, and Stargate V2, a cross-chain bridge facilitating liquidity movement between Soneium and other networks. In addition, with Sony’s backing, Soneium is positioned to integrate blockchain into consumer-focused applications.

DEXes

Sufficient DEX liquidity is a fundamental requirement for Aave’s deployment. Below, we present three of the largest DEXs currently operating on Soneium. Notably, Uniswap V4 has also been deployed on Soneium; however, according to DefiLlama, it has no recorded TVL as of the time of writing.

  • Kyo Finance:
    • TVL: $34.9M
    • 7-Day Cumulative Volume: $22M
  • Velodrome:
    • TVL: $4.31M
    • 7-Day Cumulative Volume: $10.1M
  • Sonex:
    • TVL: $17.33M
    • 7-Day Cumulative Volume: $5.14M

Assets

Given the nascent stage of this chain, we recommend a strict selection of assets that have previously been assessed by Aave Risk Providers. This approach ensures foundational functionality for the new instance, with any additional listings subject to proposal and approval through standard governance procedures. For example, some of the largest assets on Soneium include solvBTC, with a total supply of 14,987, and solvBTC.BBN, which has a total supply of 10,222. Additionally, tokens like ASTR are widely used across the Soneium ecosystem. These assets, along with others, will undergo independent risk assessments as needed based on user demand.

Chaos Labs proposes the following assets for the initial listing on the Soneium instance:

Asset Supply on Soneium Market Cap on Soneium 24H DEX Volume on Soneium Sell Liquidity SoneiumScan
WETH 6,397 $12.00M $3.97M $470K URL
USDC.e 14,798,955 $14.79M $4.31M $958K URL
USDT 2,011,410 $2.01M $309.30K $630K URL

USDC bridging from Ethereum to Soneium follows the Bridged USDC Standard, utilizing two primary smart contract adapters deployed on Ethereum and Soneium: L1OpUSDCBridgeAdapter and L2OpUSDCBridgeAdapter. When a user initiates a bridge transfer, USDC tokens on Ethereum are locked within the L1 adapter contract. This event triggers a cross-domain message using the Optimism stack’s ICrossDomainMessenger, instructing the L2 adapter on Soneium to mint the equivalent amount of USDC.e tokens. Upon receiving this message, the L2 adapter verifies the request and executes the mint operation, providing the bridged representation (USDC.e) to the recipient address on Soneium.

The bridging of USDT and WETH from Ethereum to Soneium utilizes a canonical bridge mechanism implemented through the L1StandardBridge and L2StandardBridge contracts within Soneium’s Optimism-based OP Stack architecture. When users initiate a bridging transaction, the original tokens—either USDT or WETH—are escrowed (locked) in the canonical bridge contract on Ethereum. This locking event triggers a secure cross-domain message via Optimism’s ICrossDomainMessenger, instructing the corresponding bridge contract on Soneium to mint an equivalent bridged representation of these tokens directly to the recipient’s address.

Oracles

We recommend utilizing Chainlink Price Feeds for asset pricing on Soneium, which details the assets currently live on the network.

Listing Parameters

Based on our analysis of TVL and other key metrics, asset data on Soneium is likely to experience significant fluctuations as deployment nears. Therefore, we will not be publishing initial asset parameters at this stage. Instead, we will assess real-time market conditions and provide the relevant parameters closer to deployment.

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