In October this year, Binance Labs announced an investment in Sophon, bringing its total funding to over $70 million. The Sophon mainnet is expected to launch next month, and the tokens will soon be deployed.

So, what makes Sophon unique compared to most emerging public chains in the market? How will Sophon attract consumer attention? To explore this, crypto media Blockmates had an in-depth conversation with Sophon founder SEB, discussing why Sophon is an important direction for future consumer public chains.

Below is the full podcast transcript, approximately 7000 words long, with a reading time of about 5 minutes.

Current State of the Crypto Industry

Host:

Today, we have invited Seb, the founder of Sophon, to share insights. Seb, how have you been lately? What are your goals? Can you introduce your project?

Before we dive deeper, I want to talk about the current state of the industry— we are at the peak of financial nihilism. The industry seems to be at a crossroads, with people feeling lost, and MEME coins are currently all the rage. What do you think about the current state of the industry? We can discuss it from both the present situation and future development perspectives.

Seb:

Thank you for the invitation. In my conversations with friends from various places, I can feel the change in people's mindsets. This year, the market's fatigue is quite evident. Despite many new projects being launched, there hasn't been much overall change, especially after the ECC conference. This sentiment began at the end of last year's bear market, and while expectations for 2024 are high, the market remains confused this year.

Although Web3 introduced many hot concepts in 2023, such as account abstraction and zero-knowledge proofs, the market's vitality is not as expected. Especially when I was in Asia, many people were asking, "What should we do next?"

The rise of MEME coins is a product of this market atmosphere, providing people with a sense of stimulation and new excitement, reflecting the maturity of crypto culture, which integrates various elements of art and pop culture.

This culture is rapidly expressed through MEME coins, allowing people to express themselves and attempt to profit. This is similar to the previous NFT craze, with various innovative projects emerging. I believe that if we don't just adopt a nihilistic attitude but explore the underlying motivations behind these phenomena, we will find many opportunities worth exploring.

It's important to focus on the infrastructure that supports these behaviors. In the previous cycle, platforms like OpenSea and Blur supported the financialization of NFTs. These are built on solid infrastructure, and now tools like pump.fun make cultural expression easier. We will delve deeper into this later.

Sophon’s goal is not to directly provide end products but to focus on creating platforms and products that support user self-expression. Cryptocurrency users often possess independent thinking traits and a desire for free expression. Therefore, by letting go of nihilism and seeing the potential of cryptocurrency, we will discover many promising opportunities.

Host:

From an external perspective, Sophon’s performance is uniquely attractive. By observing your brand presentation and communicating with your team, one can feel your distinctive style. Our brand and promotion leaders are usually critical of projects but have spoken highly of you, indicating that your brand is indeed different.

Even though the current environment is full of changes and challenges, we should not overlook the highlights. These phenomena are areas your team can deeply explore, especially the changes in on-chain user and consumer behavior patterns. Although they may seem off-topic, they actually lay the groundwork for our upcoming discussion. Can you briefly summarize Sophon for readers who are not familiar with it? We will delve into the details later.

Seb:

Thank you for recognizing our brand and visual work. This is an intentional strategy; our creative team has full autonomy and collaborates with top design studios to create appealing works.

Sophon is a public chain focused on consumers and entertainment. While technical discussions are essential, I prefer the public to understand its non-technical side. Sophon represents the next step in the crypto space, and my team focuses on building products using a selected tech stack.

I compare Sophon to early Facebook, which provided a unified account system and user interface, allowing users to interact comprehensively on the platform. However, in the crypto space, the decentralization in various directions poses challenges for new users. Sophon’s core goal is to bring Web2 user experience and intuitiveness into Web3, achieving a more valuable internet experience.

Development of User Experience and Infrastructure

Host:

Why has the crypto industry been stuck in an infrastructure development cycle? Has the development of this infrastructure paved the way for projects like Sophon and helped achieve a better user experience?

Seb:

Infrastructure, while dull, is crucial. Just like undersea cables connect the internet or new building materials support skyscrapers, users care about intuitive and delightful experiences rather than the technical details behind them. Our task is to leverage this infrastructure to make user experiences intuitive and straightforward. We want new users to use Sophon by logging in with a Google account, obtaining a non-custodial wallet, and easily topping up with a credit card without needing to understand the technical details.

Our goal is to make everything as simple and intuitive as Web2 applications. The crypto world often seems complex, and our work is to simplify the user experience while protecting their privacy and assets.

Host:

Just like the iPhone, which, through excellent UI/UX, allows users to instinctively know how to operate it. How do you solve these issues? Do you have a vision and a team to achieve this goal?

Seb:

My background is in philosophy and history, and I have worked in traditional finance. I focus on studying how crypto infrastructure can be applied intuitively, examining user interactions with technology, and analyzing how decisions made by tech giants impact user behavior, striving to apply these insights to the crypto space to make it more user-friendly. Our goal is to apply these observations at the product level, making cryptocurrency easier to use and attracting a broader audience.

Host:

Is Sophon’s onboarding experience significantly different from existing crypto applications? For instance, using Rabby to log into applications can be quite troublesome, such as determining website security and complex cross-chain operations.

These are the issues crypto users currently face. How will Sophon improve these problems by simplifying and optimizing the user onboarding process? Can you resolve these difficulties in the short term?

Seb:

There are multiple layers to this question. By using ZK Stack and elastic chains, Sophon achieves consistency in cross-chain assets, for example, USDC shares the same contract across all environments using elastic chains. This design simplifies multi-chain operations and enhances user experience.

Nevertheless, users can still interact with the blockchain independently through tools like MetaMask. Technically savvy users can delve into the underlying details, but we prefer that most users do not have to worry about these complexities.

We plan to explore account abstraction and payment technologies to hide the underlying complexities, thereby attracting more new users into the crypto space. We understand that early adopters are already present, but attracting new users is key to achieving sustainable business. These new users are our target audience, and they need simple and intuitive experiences.

Crypto-native users often switch quickly between different projects, and market competition is fierce. To build a sustainable business, we need to focus on bringing in new users. By creating an attractive user experience, we hope to persuade more people to try the new experiences that cryptocurrency offers. This is our focus and effort.

What Kind of Infrastructure Does Web3 Need?

Host:

Is Sophon more like a platform similar to Coinbase or Binance rather than another L1 or L2?

Seb:

In the cryptocurrency space, Solana and Base are the most popular projects among retail users. Base is a Layer 2 project under Coinbase, serving as a gateway for North America into cryptocurrency, enhancing the developer experience and performing well using the infrastructure provided by OP Stack. Solana is also continuously innovating, especially in applications like MEME coins.

While the protocol and network layers are developing well, there is still much room for innovation at the application layer. Sophon combines efforts from both the protocol and network to ensure a comfortable experience for crypto-native users while providing the necessary infrastructure.

New applications, such as NFT auctions for space seats and AI girlfriends, are being tried. While not all innovations will succeed, they add diversity and fun to the field.

Host:

Do you think public chains need to start with financial applications and then build other content?

Seb:

I believe different business lines can be developed simultaneously. Some focus on short-term gains, while others focus on mid-term development. The first users are usually crypto-native users who participate in the platform's early processes.

The first users will be crypto-native users because they can exist on the platform from the start and engage with it.

For example, if Sony launches Sonium and integrates it into the PlayStation store or other platforms, they might attract non-crypto-native users, but this needs to be emphasized in subsequent developments.

When users interact with the front end, they are actually interacting with a brand, an image, a culture, a community, and a concept. That is what matters most, not which technology or system they are using. They care about the core platform and the applications built on it. Therefore, if you can provide consumer-related products in a very user-friendly way, you are more likely to attract non-crypto-native users from day one.

For instance, we are currently collaborating with some mobile game teams that have already released ready-made products on Google Play or the Apple Store, have product-market fit, and have user bases. They have achieved millions or even billions of downloads and are now transitioning their business logic to the blockchain. Collaborating with such companies to successfully transition from web 2 to web 3 using the actual infrastructure of cryptocurrency will be a game changer.

Prioritizing Mobile Devices

Host:

Let’s delve a bit deeper; are mobile devices important to you? People who often hear this topic might laugh because I always bring it up, and currently, not many people in the crypto industry are pushing for mobile devices. But as far as I know, most people in the Eastern world are using handheld devices.

Seb:

I don’t know what the statistics are, so I don’t want to make anything up, but as far as I remember, eighty percent of activities are now happening on mobile devices.

Just look at the advertising industry now; traditional advertising has some difficulties because, from the consumer's perspective, ads are primarily appearing on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and content filmed by influencers in their bedrooms. Current content production is widely consumed. Therefore, if we are to build a product focused on consumer entertainment, we must consider how people currently consume.

Especially considering Generation Z, who are below the millennials, and Gen Alpha, who are below them. It’s like the age of my nephew. If we are to build a forward-looking product, we must consider the market's direction five or ten years down the line, who the customer base is, and how they consume products. They are consuming content 100% on mobile devices.

Why Build on ZK Stack?

Host:

Why choose ZK and Validium as the suitable tech stack to achieve invisible support for crypto infrastructure? How do these tech stacks enable you to become a more consumer-centric application rather than opening a Phantom wallet in a browser extension and operating on Solana like others?

Seb:

ZK Stack has native account abstraction capabilities, and account abstraction is the implementation of the 4337 contract, applicable to all blockchains except Starkware and ZK Sync, existing at the application level and creating a second memory pool. External accounts cannot use it like ZK Sync and Starkware.

The version of account abstraction they use is built at the core network layer, meaning everything that touches the network uses account abstraction. Therefore, in practice, when building something like a Paymaster, it can sponsor gas fees and use different tokens to pay gas fees, etc. This prepares the entire network to be more efficient and creates a memory pool that external accounts can use.

This is particularly attractive because the base token of the chain can be ERC20, so Sophon’s base token is the Sophon token. Few chains use their tokens as base tokens, such as BNB, Mantle, etc., which perform well and continue to evolve because the tokens are Gas Tokens.

This is very important for your token because the token is part of the project, and of course, you want its value to rise. Therefore, Sophon’s design revolves around consumer and entertainment applications that will generate a lot of transactions. Thus, we hope to have applications that can generate a lot of transactions and directly use the Sophon token for payment. ZK Stack enables us to achieve this. While I have also studied other blockchain tech stacks, their efficiency is much lower and costs are higher. We would have to buy more ETH in the background and burn more of our tokens, which seems less elegant.

User Registration and Journey

Host:

So what will the Sophon user onboarding experience be like? Will you have your native wallet? Can you describe the user flow? So that people can have an intuitive understanding and imagine it.

Seb: We are a bit different. No one will specifically visit Base.com to use Base; I am doing the opposite, I want people to go to Sophon.xyz.

I hope Sophon is built with wallet and web application functionalities, including some chat features. What’s different is that various functions and features will be provided to users, enabling them to build community culture and engage in goal-oriented interactions.

When you visit Sophon.xyz, you can log in using a Google account, keys, or secure isolation. Everything will be automatically created for you in the background, and if you need to check settings or recover your account, that’s certainly possible. But generally, the onboarding process will be very smooth.

Next, Sophon will launch as a permissioned chain. This means that only protocols, companies, and projects approved by us can build on Sophon. Why? Because we are building a chain focused on consumers and entertainment, aimed at attracting new users. I don’t want users to face any fraud risks, use the wrong protocols, or transfer to the wrong people. Therefore, the ecosystem must be closed, at least in the initial phase.

This way, we can create a friendly and safe environment for new users to experience crypto technology for the first time.

Sophon’s Initial Applications and Ecosystem Collaborations

Host:

So what will the initial phase of Sophon look like? Imagine the situation on the first day.

Seb: In the initial phase, there will be a core DeFi ecosystem. Sophon is not a chain focused on DeFi, but DeFi is fundamental in the crypto space, so there will be an AMM, a lending market, and a perpetual contract protocol to ensure basic operations. Then we will focus on different verticals and subfields we like, selecting some companies we believe have potential and supporting them as much as we can, including gaming, crypto technology, AI ticketing, sports betting, social betting, and other tracks.

The upcoming flagship protocol is Aither, which is migrating all its infrastructure to the Sophon platform. Aither not only provides decentralized computing services but also brings many potential features, such as supporting decentralized or open-source LLMs for various uses, which is exciting.

Additionally, there are other projects, including gaming, ticketing protocol Open, prediction protocol Rivalry, and social protocol Mirai, which will collaborate with us for launch. There are also some upcoming plans that we intend to roll out gradually to showcase our ongoing construction and achievements, which is very important for the community.

Recently, we announced that Binance Labs is investing in us, which surprised many, and the community's feedback has been very positive. We have also received more collaboration and building requests from others.

However, I don’t want to have 100 projects in the ecosystem from the start because it’s impossible to manage them effectively. I realized this because I’ve done similar things before; you cannot provide quality service, feedback, and support to 100 projects simultaneously.

Therefore, we plan to take it slow, building close collaborations with these projects one by one, and then consider future development directions. For me, the most important thing is to have a platform that allows people to build applications on it. I think this is very important because it allows people to create their own communities, cultural circles, and cultures. When building culture, people will want to interact, so if the platform and products allow people to express themselves freely, it will be very powerful.

Host:

This approach makes a lot of sense. Choosing the right chain for deployment is challenging for partners and investment companies. There is often feedback that many chains fail to deliver on promises regarding technical support, core marketing, etc., and managing 100 projects is unrealistic.

Teams usually want to connect directly with the chain because the chain provides them with channels. If the chain builds its community, those community members are the first users. Users do not want to be exploited, so it is unrealistic to ask everyone to experience every project.

We can learn from Web2 experiences on how to attract new customers, build communities, and engage users. These experiences can be applied to crypto technology, presenting a huge opportunity. To increase user stickiness and retention, new ecosystems need to offer fresh content upon launch. Sophon must go beyond the use cases of other chains to become an appealing platform.

Host:

Are there any interesting projects on the consumer side?

Seb:

Many intriguing projects are currently emerging, such as AI virtual girlfriends, presenting a dystopian trend, and some projects involve gambling. While some may repeat similar concepts, others are quite bold.

One project called Sarah plans to offer a space trip to lucky winners through NFT raffles, which is a fascinating concept. This event is placed on the blockchain with NFTs as raffle tickets, ensuring transparency and trustlessness, igniting people's imagination.

While many novel ideas may not be feasible, I support this exploration of innovation rather than investing in the tenth fork of Uniswap v3. I look forward to collaborating with existing brands to bring Web2 concepts and products into the crypto space. This innovation showcases the exploration and creativity for the future, which is exciting.

Host:
Are you aware of the current interest in integration within the Web2 space? Some small companies are securing global brand endorsements by paying fees, which may seem monotonous. However, some collaborative projects indeed bring more authentic experiences. Do you have any insights into the current interest in integration in this field?

Seb:

In 2021, we saw some unique situations, such as the craze for "Bored Apes." Celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Justin Bieber participated, even showcasing them in music videos. Cryptocurrency almost touched ordinary consumers, and Polygon was actively collaborating with Starbucks, Instagram, and Disney at that time, although ultimately without results, we did reach a certain peak.

This scenario may reoccur, and things may be different in the next year or two. Importantly, brands and companies will have more choices, no longer limited to platforms like ETH, AVAX, and Polygon. Companies will consider different platforms, communities, and cultures, understanding users and having close user groups.

At Sophon, we are preparing for this moment, building a vibrant community and culture that allows users to engage and enjoy our products. When big brands decide to transform, we can provide them with the best opportunities. Transformations may occur in industries like automotive, fashion, music, and film. I believe the gaming industry will undergo significant changes, and the play-to-earn concept will be realized and successful.

Although this model currently resembles a scam built on DeFi protocols, if it can provide the same or even better user experience as regular games while adding play-to-earn elements, users will definitely choose this model. Just like social networks, users will only switch if the experience is equal to or better.

No one wants to lower their experience. If the user experience and onboarding experience of play-to-earn content are poor, gamers will not accept it. But if it can activate the economy and digital value within the game and achieve it in the same way, this model will be more popular.

Host:

I often say that we cannot completely dismiss play-to-earn just because the initial attempts had issues. There are now some attempts, such as tap-to-earn mini-games, but these projects tend to prioritize crypto over gaming, which is the reverse logic. As you mentioned, the industry’s development and your building direction indicate that users do not need to realize they are using crypto infrastructure.

Users just need to follow the steps, log in with a passkey or other means, and they can claim or trade items. Once a few people earn through this method, word will spread, and the corresponding incentive and reward mechanisms will kick in. I feel this has not been solidly implemented in the gaming environment yet. Although there have been breakthroughs like Godzilla and Off the Grid, it’s still not enough. Whoever can crack this market and potential will achieve amazing results.

Seb:

This market is enormous. We have an undisclosed partner company that meets all the criteria and is a mobile game, and I am looking forward to the upcoming announcement. This mobile game has been around for years and has hundreds of millions of downloads. The new version has integrated crypto infrastructure and is currently in beta testing on the Sophon chain, with very positive results. I believe that a successful partnership with them will prove that the combination of play-to-earn and mobile gaming is feasible, and it will expand from mobile games to console games in the future.

Host:

Seb, what are your upcoming plans? How is the launch progress? Some have already started activities like token mining. Can you share the current progress?

Seb:

We are preparing to launch the mainnet, with the date yet to be determined, but it will be released before the end of this year. The mainnet launch will feature no gas fees. We will showcase the maximum potential of the technology and then make arrangements for token listings, expected by the end of this year or early next year.

Host:

One thing I forgot to ask is about the flagship projects in DeFi; are they all natively built applications? Are there any other projects joining and building?

Seb:

Yes, they are all teams from existing products in the market that wish to collaborate with us, and they are teams I trust.