The Layer 1 blockchain is the latest to abandon its pursuit of decentralization and cozy up to U.S traditional finance.
Layer 1 blockchain Sonic, formerly Fantom, has passed a proposal to form Sonic USA, which will deploy $150 million worth of S tokens to fund an exchange-traded fund (ETF) and digital asset treasury (DAT), offering traditional investors exposure to Sonic.
The proposal, authored by Yearn Finance and Fantom/Sonic founder Andre Cronje, calls for a shift from “2018 tokenomics” to “2025 tokenomics,” and says that its 2018 goal of full decentralization “does not suit the current market and is therefore no longer our goal.” The proposal passed on Aug. 31 with 99.99% of voters in favor, backed by 860 million S tokens, worth $258 million.
Despite the news, S has hardly moved, and is up less than half a percent today to $0.3, or a $978 million market capitalization, down 70% from its all-time high and launch price of $1.03.
With the proposal passed, Sonic USA will hire a new CEO and fill other key executive positions to spearhead the operation, now that the Sonic Labs team has finalized its LLC in the state of Delaware.
Once established, Sonic and Sonic USA LLC will dive headfirst into U.S. traditional finance, targeting ETF providers with $10 billion or more in assets under management (AUM) to launch its ETF or ETP, while scouting a NASDAQ-listed company that can leverage debt for a strategic reserve of S tokens.
The company also plans to focus heavily on U.S. regulatory alignment and emphasize Circle’s USDC stablecoin in Sonic’s DeFi ecosystem.
The pivot marks the latest addition to a growing list of ETFs and DATs that investors can buy via traditional finance rails to get exposure to the underlying cryptocurrencies, inspired by the success of Michael Saylor’s Strategy.
