A new star in the gaming chain on Solana: A comprehensive analysis of SonicEVM

Author: IceFrog Source: X, @Ice_Frog666666

I. Basic Situation

(I) Introduction

Sonic is a Layer-2 game chain based on Solana. It proposes the first expansion architecture HyperGrid, which can help game developers efficiently process and manage game status, logic and events. Sonic is 100% compatible with all EVM smart contracts and has a native game engine, providing game developers with comprehensive On-Chain game development components. Powered by Mirror World.

1.1、Current status of the project

• Sonic will start the public testnet phase on June 19, 2024.

• The project is in its early stages, the white paper has not announced the token economic distribution model, and the TGE time is unknown.

1.2、Team background investigation

• Identity verification:

• According to Rootdata, the project only has one member: Chris Zhu

• Chris Zhu: is the co-founder of Sonic. He graduated from the Stern School of Business at New York University in 2020 with a bachelor's degree in Marketing and Global Business and Finance and Operations. He speaks four languages: Chinese (native), English (native), etc. During his career, he has participated in internships at Beijing Yizhan Capital and currently works for several domestic and foreign companies. He has a Chinese face and is Chinese.

• According to Rootdata, the background of the project is: rct AI's organization → Mirror World's organization → SonicEVM.

• The members of the rct AI team are: Zhang Yan, Chen Yuheng, Wu Xiankun, Chris Zhu

• Zhang Yan: Co-founder and CTO of rct AI and Delysium, male, Chinese, about 30 years old, graduated from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and then studied for a master's degree at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, mainly studying software engineering.

• Chen Yuheng: Chen Yuheng is the co-founder of rct AI and the actual leader of rct AI. He is male, Chinese, about 30 years old, a lifelong game player, a full-stack hacker, and graduated from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

• Wu Xiankun: President and COO of rct AI, male, Chinese, about 28 years old, graduated from Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University. During school, he won the debate championship and the first prize of Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University. He is currently a member of the board of directors of rct AI.

• Mirror World team public members 4 people: Chris Zhu, Jialin Zhu, Jonathan Bakebwa, Arif Kazi

• Jialin Zhu: Mirror World's Chief Product Officer, Chinese, about 25 years old, graduated from Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, and then studied for a master's degree in economics at the University of Hong Kong.

• Jonathan Bakebwa: Mirror World's CTO, Ugandan, about 26 years old, studied in China, graduated from Beijing Institute of Technology, majoring in computer science and technology.

• Arif Kazi: Currently serving as BD director of both Mirror World and SonicEVM, Indian, male, about 28 years old, graduated from Narsmonji College of Commerce and Economics.

• rct AI and Mirror World are both Chinese project organizations.

• Past projects:

• Chris Zhu: During college for many years (2015~2020), he used the summer and winter vacations to participate in internships in major domestic Internet companies and accumulated rich work experience. After graduating in 2020, he held important positions in these companies (ByteDance, Feishu, etc.), and is still working. During his employment, he founded Mirror World in September 21 and joined rct AI in October of the same year as vice president of products.

• Zhang Yan: He was a software engineer at BMW China in the early days, building the internal communication platform of BMW R&D Center. Later, he worked as a site engineer at Baidu, responsible for the operation and maintenance of large clusters of distributed servers, and researched lightweight virtualization technologies such as container technology. He then joined NVIDIA as a software intern, and two years later became a senior software engineer. His main development direction is deep learning of AI infrastructure for autonomous vehicles. He is currently co-founder of Delysium (an AI-driven MMO game, with a financing of 14 million US dollars and a current market value of 140 million US dollars), and has successful entrepreneurial experience.

• Chen Yuheng: He worked as a full-stack software engineer at tataUFO in the early days, designed and built a news push system for millions of users from 0 to 100, and later served as the chief of staff of the intelligent hardware department at Baidu, managing the entire BU, leading and participating in all details of product, software and hardware development, supply chain, marketing, strategic partnerships, and various aspects of BU operations. The last project he participated in was Raven Technology (the only Chinese startup project in Y Combinator W15, which was acquired by Baidu after raising a total of US$18 million).

• Wu Xiankun: After graduation, he interned at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Zhen Fund, and Blue Elephant Capital. Later, he served as the co-founder of ReadAbroad (a content e-commerce company invested by TikTok, Sina Weibo, and Zhen Fund). He spent a long time at rct AI and was the co-founder of Delysium with Zhang Yan. He has successful entrepreneurial experience.

• Jialin Zhu: After graduation, he interned at two companies, 36Kr and Leap Capita. During the internship, he was responsible for business analysis and served as an investment assistant. Later, he joined the parent company rct AI as a senior business analyst. He has little experience in the industry and this is his first time as a senior executive.

• Jonathan Bakebwa: He has extensive experience in past projects. In the early days, he served as co-founder, software engineer and CTO of Akkadu (Akkadu is located in Beijing and mainly provides remote translation, AI subtitles and shorthand subtitles for various online conferences). He played an important role in developing simultaneous interpretation software. Later, he served as technical director and senior software engineer at the parent company rct AI, mainly researching Ethereum smart contract development. At the same time, he is also the CEO and founder of Xtellar Works, Inc. (an e-commerce company based in Uganda). He has rich development experience and strong personal ability.

• Arif Kazi: In the early days, he mainly worked as a stock trader and research analyst in Indian companies. Later, he worked as a community manager in mesha (an Indian web3 financial management company) and Stader Labs (a multi-chain liquidity staking platform developed by an Indian team, which has raised US$40 million and a current market value of US$17 million). During his tenure, he helped mesha increase the number of Discord community members from 300 to 27,000, and helped Stader Labs increase the number of Discord community members from 11,000 to 22,000. He also increased Stader Labs' Twitter followers by 43%, from 63,000 to 90,000. He then worked as the growth director at DappLooker (a Web3 analysis platform), increasing the project's user acquisition by 50%. Overall, he has rich experience in community operations.

• Public Records:

• Currently, there is no public information showing that Chris Zhu and his team have a bad legal record.

• Chris Zhu

  Twitter is very active and often speaks at some community meetings.

• Community Feedback:

• Sonic Testnet Odyssey reached 100,000 wallets and 17 million transactions in just one week,

• Information source

  .

• The official announced on July 2 that Sonic Testnet Odyssey has reached an incredible milestone: 300,000 wallets and 52 million transactions!

  Data source

• However, precisely because the project is not really popular, but the data is growing rapidly, some community members have questioned whether there is insider trading.

1.3. Identify whether it is a Chinese team:

• Registration address investigation:

• According to Crunchbase query, Sonic’s registered address is: San Francisco, California, USA

• Investigation of the team’s undisclosed resumes:

• According to LinkedIn query, the team’s undisclosed members:

• SonicEVM currently has 17 members, of which about half are Asian.

• Active time zone:

• The official Twitter account is mostly active from 9pm to 2am, which is consistent with the active time in San Francisco on the west coast of the United States.

(II) Financing

• SonicSVM raised $12 million in the Series A financing announced on June 18, including well-known investment institutions such as OKX, and several institutions that participated in the seed round continued to increase their investment in the Series A financing.

• A total of 18 institutions participated in the investment, including 12 Chinese institutions, accounting for 67%.

(III) Valuation

• No Solana Layer-2 product has been successfully launched yet. Currently, the EVM game chains and game solution projects that can be used as reference are similar to Sonic projects: Oasys, Elixir Games, COMBO, Ethlas, etc.

• This project is led by Chinese people. Currently, the market is quite resistant to Chinese projects. However, considering that it is Solana's first game chain, it is possible to raise other funds in the future. According to the current financing amount (16 million), the estimated market value is about 100 to 150 million US dollars.

2. Participation Opportunities

(1) Level 1 Opportunities

• There is currently no opportunity for kol round participation.

(2) Secondary opportunities

• No NFT is currently on sale.

(III) 1.5 Level Opportunities

3.1, Odyssey Test Network:

a. Certainty

• The test network Odyssey mission introduction has clearly stated that there will be future rewards.

  Information Source

• Two key resources during Odyssey: Ring Mystery Box and Sonic Ring.

• Rings are the main core resource for future rewards.

• The Ring Mystery Box is the key way to obtain Sonic Rings. You can get 1 to 5 rings by opening it.

b. Participation method:

• Participate in Sonic test network interaction:

  Test network link

• Officially recommend using Backpack or Nightl wallet to connect and interact.

• To participate in Sonic test network Odyssey, you need to get some test Sol as gas fee.

  Faucet link

  (No code verification required)

• Basic tasks: Connect to Twitter and follow projects, connect to DC and join project channels.

• Sign-in task: Daily sign-in, gas must be paid Sign in for 1~7 days, and get 1 box as a daily reward. Sign in for 8~14 days, and get 2 boxes as a daily reward. Sign in for more than 14 days, and get 3 boxes as a daily reward.

• TX Milestone: According to the TX record on the wallet chain, you can get rewards when the specified number of times is reached, and the record is reset and calculated daily. Reach 10TX, and get 2 boxes as a daily reward Reach 50TX, and get 4 boxes as a daily reward Reach 100TX, and get 6 boxes as a daily reward

• Invitation Task: Copy the invitation code and send it to your friends.

• Ring Lottery: You can purchase the lottery multiple times after receiving water every day (a variable that widens the gap with the low-security number). The winning rate is too low and is not included in the test network income for the time being.

• Game Adventure: Participating in ecological game interactions can earn rings and game airdrop expectations. Recommended game FoMoney (2048), you can get a lot of TX to complete TX tasks to get basic rewards. The leaderboard award is 1 million tokens. It takes a long time to play games to get on the list (a variable that widens the gap with the low-security number), which is not included in the test network income for the time being.

  Information source

c. Time node:

• Sonic test network was opened on June 19, and the end date has not been announced.

d. Participation data:

• The official website issued an announcement on July 2, stating that the test network has reached a new milestone: 300,000 registered wallets and 52 million TX transactions.

  As of the time of editing this article (July 8), the test network has reached 15.53 million+ wallets and 128 million+ TX transaction records.

• Sonic Ring Contract Address: 8DihuwAUQ9CAU8U2pQ5Rv7FzpsGaZmbwK9Ln6fStdSeo Total Supply: 7,886,383,489.

• Calculation of the number of rings available: The end date has not been announced, and it is calculated based on 2 months of participation, that is, 60 days.

• The average number of rings unpacked in each ring mystery box is about 2.5. Assuming that you can participate for 2 months, the minimum guarantee number can get 525 ring mystery boxes, and about 525*2.5=1312 rings. . Cake size:

  • Sonic is currently valued at 100 million to 150 million. According to the estimated airdrop cases of other projects of its team and its parent company (AGI token allocation), it is estimated that the airdrop proportion of Sonic test network is 1.5%, that is, the airdrop cake is worth 1.5 to 2.25 million US dollars.

  f. Odds:

  • Testnet task interaction participation cost: Twitter account, DC account, channel joining fee, total cost is about 1U

  • Odds calculation:

  

  • Currently calculated odds for low-income number are: income 0.25~0.37U / Cost 1U = 0.25~0.37 times odds.

  • The lottery number can get up to 10,000 rings. The winning income is about 1.9~2.9U, about 1.9~2.9 times odds. (The probability of winning 10,000 rings is too low)

  g. Funding capacity:

  • Test network interaction has no capital cost pressure, only Twitter and DC need to be purchased.

  h. Risk warning:

  • The current estimated income is lower than the batch cost. The risk of loss is very high if a large number of participants participate.

  • Batch interaction has witch risk.

  3.3. Final summary:

  • Chinese projects have high-risk attributes. Judging from the current data, they are already very risky, the odds are too bad, and the probability of reverse winning is extremely high.

  • If you have a large number of Twitter and DC accounts, you can participate in the ring lottery to win 10,000 ring rewards. Scripts are required, the odds are low, and the probability of winning is too low.