Forward the Original Title‘Hello World. Hello Sonic’

Someone has to do it. I made the ultimate Sonic Playbook for all of you, especially if you’re unfamiliar with DeFi Flywheel. @AndreCronjeTech is also shilling 20+ projects/day, so I filter good projects for you.

I started playing crypto because of the DeFi Summer 2020, and I’m glad that AC and its chain have finally returned. Just like the usual tutorial, this article will dive deep into Sonic’s developments. However, I would first introduce the risks of playing in the DeFi Flywheel Ecosystem. I’m not responsible for your loss, but I want to explain the mechanism behind the DeFi Flywheel for the newcomers.

(If you just want to know the “CA”, jump to part IV.)

Repost this article and engage with it so we can keep the Sonic Flywheel going, you will understand why at the end😉

I. Flywheel = Ponzi? How to not be the last?

II. What is Sonic and why Sonic

III. New Tokenomics

IV. Ecosystem Opportunities (hand pick by Foxi)

I. Flywheel = Ponzi? When to Run?

At the core of many DeFi Flywheel lies a mismatch between when capital is deployed and when its true value is recognized—a phenomenon often summarized as “enter when no one is aware, exit when everyone is aware.”

Early liquidity injections generate momentum, drawing in more participants and creating a self-reinforcing cycle of growth. Essentially, early movers benefit from compounded rewards as liquidity builds and the system gains recognition.

Classic ve(3,3) model is to make sure everyone to “STAKE”

@AndreCronjeTech introduced the ve(3,3) tokenomics model through Solidly Exchange on Fantom last cycle. This model combines Curve Finance’s vote escrow (ve) and Olympus DAO’s (3,3) game theory, aligning incentives for token holders and liquidity providers to reduce selling pressure and enhance sustainability.

The ve(3,3) model aims to align incentives by rewarding users who lock their tokens with transaction fees, reducing selling pressure and enhancing liquidity. It was designed to address issues like unsustainable inflation from liquidity mining, focusing on fee generation rather than passive emissions.

As now Fantom has rebranded into Sonic, you can expect that the ve(3,3) aka DeFi Flywheel would still be the key philosophy of Sonic DeFi.

How ve(3,3) works

The flywheel was a driving force behind the DeFi boom, one of the Andre Cronje product is @yearnfi. Its token YFI rise from $6 to over $30,000 in less than two months. And you know, just like many other memecoins, there’s gonna be an end. Basically for all the crypto projects expect for Bitcoin, when to enter and when to leave is the most important topic.

“Enter when no one is aware, Exit when everyone is aware.”’

II. What is Sonic and Why Sonic

No one gives a fuck but Sonic is formerly known as Fantom. It is a high-performance layer-1 solution with over 10,000 transactions per second and sub-second finality. Its native token, $S is used for transaction fees, staking, and governance, with existing Fantom users able to upgrade their $FTM tokens to S on a 1:1 basis.

Most people didn’t really care about another low latency layer 1 as we have plenty of them already in the spaces. Therefore, there are three actual reasons why Sonic pops up:

1. Andre Cronje as a DeFi OG is backed to lead his project
2. Airdrop Program: Sonic is distributing 190.5M $S (~6% of total supply) through a rewards program to attract new users (more info on Part III)
3. People are sick of memecoin and swing back to a more fundamental DeFi games, shown by poor $SOL price

The recent money inflow also show market interest towards Sonic, as evidenced by:

• Native token $S is up 113.5% in 14 days
• Sonic TVL +70% in 7 days, the best among all the reasonably sized chains
• FDV/Fee Ratio of 283x is 57% below vs. Peers, suggesting Sonic could be undervalued relative to its revenue generation

Source: @DV_Memetics

Sonic is ranked the top for 7d TVL Change.

III. New Tokenomics (Boring but Important)

• Supply and Inflation

Fantom’s FTM had a max supply of ~3.175 billion tokens (mostly fully diluted). Sonic’s genesis supply of $S is identical, ensuring a 1:1 swap for existing FTM. However, $S is not a fixed-supply token and it has controlled inflation to fund growth. Approximately 6% of S’s total supply was minted on top for user and developer incentives (airdrop). This equates to ~190.5 million $S for airdrops about 6 months post-launch. Therefore before June 2025, there will not be any new supply (unlock) so maybe a good time to trade it short-term.

Inflation Schedule

Additionally, $S will inflate by 1.5% per year for the first 6 years (~47.6M S in year1) to support ongoing ecosystem funding. If fully utilized, the supply could reach ~3.66B after 6 years. By contrast, FTM’s issuance was largely completed and it had no new token grants (beyond any remaining staking rewards). Sonic’s approach deliberately introduces modest inflation to invest in growth, but with strict checks – any unused funding tokens will be burned to avoid excess inflation

• Fee Burns & Deflation

FTM’s economic model did not include significant fee burning – on Opera, gas fees were distributed to validators (and 15% to builders after 2022), so FTM was actually inflationary overall (staking rewards outpaced any token burns).

$S introduces multiple deflationary pressures to balance its new emissions. As noted, 50% of all transaction fees on Sonic are burned by default (for transactions not in the gas reward program). This could make $S net deflationary if network usage is high. Additionally, the airdrop design uses a “vesting with burn” mechanism: Users can claim 25% airdrop immediately but must wait for the rest. If they choose faster vesting, they will give up a portion as to penalize short-term dumping.

Burn rate of the airdrop allocation

Finally, any of the 1.5% annual ecosystem funds that are not used will be destroyed. Taken together, these burns and controlled release schedules could offset much of the 6-year inflation, helping $S trend deflationary once the initial growth phase is over.

• User Incentives Program! (FREE MONEY💰)

As previusly mentioned, Sonic is distributing 190.5M S tokens to reward their users. You can earn airdrops by:

1. Holding whitelisted assets in your wallet, make sure it’s not a CEX wallet
2. Using Sonic’s DeFi protocols, including staking $S, LP on DEX, yield farming. etc. DeFi Activity points are weighted 2× higher than just holding assets. (detail: https://my.soniclabs.com/apps)

Current whitelisted asset, please don’t keep your token in your CEX wallet

IV. Ecosystem Opportunities

You can get the $S airdrop by holding assets or participating in Sonic’s Ecosystem. Sonic is a new ecosystem and therefore many new projects may have higher founder’s risk but can also be an alpha for you to hit 10-100x. The below is my hand picked potential projects from 4 sectors (DEX / Lending / Derivative / Meme).

(all of them are non-paid and it’s just my personal sharing)

It seems a lot of stuff, but most are NOT “opportunities”. They are not Sonic Native or have already launched for a while. Below are the actual opportunities.

DEX:

▶︎ @ShadowOnSonic

The leading native dex on Sonic. It has >150M TVL and weekly incentives of $13.73M. Its x(3,3) token model is offering users flexibility by allowing instant exits or vesting over a chosen period, unlike the long-term locks in ve(3,3). It also features a PVP rebasing mechanism, penalizing early exits with a 50% voting power penalty to protect against dilution, encouraging long-term holding.

The main improvement is the “penalty”. People can exit early by giving out their earnings

▶︎ @MetropolisDEX

A DEX on Sonic with Dynamic Liquidity Market Maker (DLMM) protocol, blending AMM and order book features. People from Solana trenches and farmer of Meteora will be in love with this.

▶︎ @vertex_protocol

A DEX offering spot, perpetuals, and money markets, with cross-margining. It has low fees (0% maker, 0.02% taker), fast order execution, and cross-chain liquidity. It’s a legit DeFi OG team.

▶︎ @wagmicom

One of the native DEX on Sonic with high trading volume. There is $1.2B processed in less than two months. Users earned over $3.6M in fees, with LP strategies for enhanced yield, built on Sonic’s speed and scalability. Could be a strong competitor to Shadow.

Lending:

▶︎ @SiloFinance: offering permissionless and risk-isolated markets. It enables quick deployment of new trading markets without integration, with high daily volumes at 125M peak.

▶︎ @eggsonsonic: Offers borrowing with collateral, as per the smart contract, with features like sell/buy fees and liquidation events

▶︎ @eulerfinance: modular lending protocol, it nnables permissionless lending and borrowing, similar to Morpho in Ethereum

▶︎ @VicunaFinance: for leveraged yield farming and offers undercollateralized loans

Derivatives (Preps, LST, Vaults, CDP):

▶︎ @Rings_Protocol: A meta-asset protocol for yield-bearing stablecoins. It provides deep liquidity for Sonic DeFi and funds projects via lockers

▶︎ @spectra_finance: An interest rate derivatives protocol, allowing yield trading and fixed rates. It offers hedging against yield volatility, with extra interest for liquidity providers

▶︎ @vfat_io: A yield aggregator to simplify yield farming and rebalancing

▶︎ @GammaSwapLabs: A volatility trading platform, oracle-free. It offers commission-free token trading and liquidity through AMMs.

▶︎ @NaviExSonic: A derivatives trading platform. Preps.

Culture / Meme

▶︎ @derpedewdz: The main NFT in Sonic Ecosystem

▶︎ @LazyBearSonic: The native Sonic launchpad with the NFT collection

▶︎ @TinHat_Cat: Sonic Meme with good community

Last - Why you should repost his article?

Remember how we started: “Enter when no one is aware, Exit when everyone is aware”

The more of us who discover and engage with Sonic’s evolving ecosystem, the longer and stronger that flywheel becomes—ultimately benefiting every participant through deeper liquidity, stronger consensus, and more opportunities instead of memecoin rugpull.

I have put lots of efforts into this. A like, share, comment is the best motivation for me. Thank you for reading—and for being part of the momentum. Cheers!

Disclaimer：

1. This article is reprinted from [@Foxi_xyz]. Forward the Original Title‘Hello World. Hello Sonic’. All copyrights belong to the original author [@Foxi_xyz]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.

2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.

3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.