[TEMP CHECK] Deploy Aave on Soneium

[MingshiS]

[TEMP CHECK] Deploy Aave on Soneium

Author: Mingshi S.

Date: 2025-02-10

Summary

This Temperature Check 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.

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.

Motivation

“Empowering individuals and communities to collaborate, create, and fill the world with emotion together.”

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.

2. 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.

3. The Graph Integration:

• The Graph has integrated with Soneium and has Full Protocol Support for data indexing on Soenum.

4. Development and Testing

• Startale Group will assist Aave’s technical team through its Integration and Support team to ensure a smooth integration.

5. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

Call to Action:

We invite the Aave community to express their support or concerns regarding this TEMP CHECK. Your feedback is crucial in determining whether to proceed with a detailed ARFC for the Aave V3 deployment on Soneium, and will help us ensure that the integration aligns with Aave’s goals and community interests.

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

Next Steps

1. Publication of TEMP CHECK, collect community & service providers feedback before escalating proposal to TEMP CHECK snapshot stage.
2. If the TEMP CHECK snapshot outcome is YAE, publish an ARFC to continue gathering community and Service Providers feedback.
3. If the ARFC snapshot outcome is YAE, publish an AIP vote for final confirmation and enforcement of the proposal.

Copyright

Thanks to @ACI for TEMP CHECK references in the forum.
Copyright and related rights waived under CC0.

[Michigan_Blockchain]

Summary

As Michigan Blockchain, we support deploying Aave on Soneium—Sony Block Solutions Labs’ Ethereum L2. Given Sony’s significant market share in technology and its massive user base, we believe that if this deployment is implemented in accordance with top-tier blockchain standards, it could onboard a substantial number of Sony users to the blockchain and Aave.

Potential

Soneium has a “unique selling point” that no other chain has. Sony has a rich catalog of intellectual property from films, music, and games. Sony can mint NFTs that represent unique collectibles. For example:

• Sony Picture’s film franchises include The Karate Kid, Ghostbusters, Men in Black, Spider-Man.
• Sony Music group owns the rights to music from artists such as The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd, Queen.
• Sony Interactive Entertainment owns the rights to video game franchises like God of War, The Last of Us, and Gran Turismo. Sony’s established presence in the gaming industry (via PlayStation) positions it perfectly to integrate blockchain-based ownership. Soneium could enable gamers to truly own, trade, or even monetize in-game assets—such as rare items, skins, or characters—via non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Soneium has already launched its first music NFTs. (Sony's Soneium Releases First Music NFT Collection With Coop Records’ NUU$HI Drop - Decrypt) This foreshadows how Sony will potentially be utilizing NFTs to tokenize its IP’s. We believe that this will be a major driver of liquidity to the chain, which will make it a good chain for DeFi applications, as liquidity is one of the most important factors.

Network

Soneium is built on the OP Stack. OP Stack based rollups can interact with each other seamlessly due to the concept of the "Superchain”. It allows for cross-chain communication and interoperability between different rollups built on the OP Stack framework, so Soneium will be able to seamlessly transact with others in the Optimism ecosystem. OP Mainnet, Base, and new chains like Unichain, Ink etc. all use the OP Stack, so the ability to move assets across chains more easily thanks to the OP Stack will benefit Soneium in DeFi usage in terms of liquidity. Also, the use of OP Stack addresses the scalability issues by facilitating high throughput at a lower cost. Currently, Soneium is supported by LayerZero which makes it pretty easy to bridge assets. This is also important for DeFi usage. Soneium already has integrations like PythNetwork so the ecosystem is developing.

Ecosystem and Market

In this part, we will be comparing the on-chain metrics of Soneium to Sonic at the time of the TEMP CHECK release for deploying Aave v3 on Sonic.

Liquidity

Soneium was launched on 14th January 2025. It is a very new chain and its TVL will continue to grow. As of February 10th, the TVL is $33m which is relatively low but can be attributed to the recent launch of the chain, only being active for less than a month.

Soneium TVL chart

The maximum number of daily transactions observed on Sonic was 932k, which is very impressive, considering that the number is 975k for Sonic (it is going to be deployed on Aave so it is a good comparison).

Soneium new transactions chart

Also, number of accounts has been growing steadily, with 303k accounts as of today. At the time of when “[TEMP CHECK] Deploy Aave v3 on Sonic” was released, Sonic had just went live, and it had only 70k accounts. So, in terms of on-chain metrics, Soneium qualifies to be integrated to Aave.

Soneium number of accounts chart

Protocols

• Stargate V2 (bridge)
  • $10.55m
• Kyo Finance (DEX)
  • $6.14m
• SakeFinance (Lending)
  • $4.96m
• Neemo Finance (liquid restaking)
  • $2.41m
• Velodrome (DEX)
  • $2.12m

Currently, there is only 1 lending platform out of the top 5 DEX’s in terms of TVL. SakeFinance’s TVL is very low, which is partly because Soneium has just gone live. Aave can gain significant market share if it integrates Soneium.

Asset suggestions

On SakeFinance, which is the current leading Lending platform on Soneium, there are 4 assets that can be supplied and borrowed:

• ASTR ($3.66m supplied on SakeFinance)
  • ASTR is the gas fee token on Astar L1 and is also used for onchain governance. More on the relation of Astar Network and Soneium here: https://astar.network/blog/astar-expands-to-ethereum-by-settling-on-soneium-mainnet-a-layer-2-solution-by-sony-block-solution-labs-165.
• WETH ($802k supplied on SakeFinance)
• USDC ($440k supplied on SakeFinance)
• USDT ($30k supplied on SakeFinance)
  (https://defillama.com/protocol/sakefinance#tvl-charts)
  Looking at the collateral amounts in this platform should give an idea of which assets to onboard to Aave.

We recommend $USDC as the stablecoin of choice as it it the dominant stablecoin with $11.08m market cap and also it is the main stablecoin on the current main lending platform SakeFinance.

$WETH is the main token in the EVM ecosystem, and has enough bridged liquidity ($13.27m), so it should also be onboarded.

For $WETH and $USDC, we suggest configuring their settings to mirror the configurations used in other deployments.

Out of these 3 proposed assets, the only asset that has not previously been covered by the Aave Risk Providers is $ASTR, and the rationale for the onboarding is that it is the highest market cap asset with $18.6m.

For all the above reasons, we deploying Aave on Soneium.

This post was written on February 10th, 2025.
-Kerem Dillice

[NK_Y]

This is NK from Startale Group, a core contributor of Soneium. We are happy to discuss further with Aave community for any questions related with the Temp Check. Looking forward to having more discussion, thank you!

[NK_Y]

Thank you for the support.

Soneium mainnet has launched only a month ago and as you have pointed out, the ecosystem is showing a decent growth since its launch.

Most recently, daily transaction count became 1.25M and Soneium’s UOPS is #4 across all layer 2 protocols according to L2Beat. While TVL currently stays around $35M, the core team believes liquidity to meaningfully increase post the initiation of ACS campaign, scheduled to start from February 20th.

The mission of Sony Block Solutions Labs is to build a Web3 network that connects souls across generations. Leveraging Sony’s massive distribution channel and IPs, Soneium is positioned to become a core pillar of adoption for blockchain technology in coming years.

[Michigan_Blockchain]

Thanks for the response. We’ll be watching the growth of Soneium closely and will contribute to the onboarding to DeFi protocols through governance processes.

[sid_areta]

The opportunity of onboarding the large Sony user base onto Aave is really lucrative. We should aim to deploy Aave in time with the ACS campaign as this will drive a lot of users (at least in the short term) towards Aave, especially given that there is no real competition on Soneium yet.

We’d like to better understand Soneium’s plans for user acquisition and exposing their user base to crypto - it’s clear that there is huge potential, and Aave can become a liquidity hub across the chain.

[NK_Y]

Thank you for the support and feedback.

There are two pillars where Soneium differentiates with other blockchain protocols in terms of Web2 user adoption.

1. Ecosystem projects who have existing user base in Web2. Given the strong presence in Japanese market, we are working with multiple enterprises and enterprise-grade projects with existing user base for their Web3 products and initiatives. Notable examples are:

A) Web3Jam. A campaign hosted by 20+ Japanese enterprises including well known brands such as Asahi, NTT Docomo, Nissan, Sanrio. The campaign is running on Soneium currently, and this is the first step of collaboration between Japanese enterprises and Soneium (source: Connecting Companies, Expanding Possibilities.The Co-Creation Project "web3 Jam").

B) Yay!. One of the most popular social application in Asia with 10M+ downloads and 2M+ monthly active users, will be integrating Soneium to their existing platform. Users would be able to enjoy seamless digital goods commerce activities on the platform through Soneium. (Source: x.com)

C) Yoake. Fandom engagement platform from Japan with J-Pop industry legends joining forces to implement tokenomics for IPs starting from pop culture. Their beta version of campaign onboard 60K+ Web2 users onchain and they will be officially launching in-house IPs in March. (Source: x.com)

2. Leveraging Sony’s products and distribution channel. We are working with multiple Sony subsidiaries to onboard existing user base and distribution channel of Sony Group.

A) Soneium’s ecosystem projects are working together with Sony subsidiaries for business collaboration opportunities, including IP collaboration. (Source: Soneium | Soneium Minato Testnet is Live Along with the Soneium Spark Incubation Program)

B) There are multiple initiatives that Sony Group is directly leading for adoption of blockchain technology for its distribution channel, IP, and user base. (Reference: https://www.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1654335.html)

We are excited to collaborate with Aave community for our upcoming journey!

[Maarten]

I would like to show my support for the deployment of Aave on Soneium!
This is Maarten from Startale Group, CEO of Startale Protocol, a core contributor to Soneium and its ecosystem.

I fully support the proposal to deploy Aave V3 on Soneium. Soneium’s rapid growth—

—demonstrates its potential as a robust platform for DeFi. The deployment of Aave V3 offers Aave a unique opportunity to tap into Sony’s extensive ecosystem, leveraging its distribution channels to reach a broader, mainstream audience.

The liquidity incentive program ACS (starting on February 20, 2025) further underscores Soneium’s commitment to fostering a vibrant DeFi environment. Integrating Aave into Soneium’s ecosystem aligns with our goal of mainstream adoption and positions Aave as a key player in the Soneium ecosystem.

I’m looking forward bringing this proposal to referendum

[ACI]

The current proposal has been escalated to TEMP CHECK Snapshot, under Skywards program by ACI.

Vote will start tomorrow, we encourage everyone to participate.

[ACI]

After Snapshot monitoring, the current TEMP CHECK Snapshot has recently ended, reaching both Quorum and YAE as winning option, with 855.3K votes.

Therefore [TEMP CHECK] Deploy Aave on Soneium has PASSED.

Next step will be the publication of an ARFC to continue gathering interest and feedback from both service providers and community, before moving forward through governance.

Closing thread to focus on ARFC.