Soneium Launches Mainnet Amid Censorship Controversies
Sony launched the Soneium L2 blockchain, built on the OP Stack, in collaboration with Startale Group. The launch faced challenges due to sequencer-level censorship.
Key points:
- The “Minato” testnet attracted over 1,700 applicants and processed 47 million transactions.
- Memecoins like AIBO saw a market cap of $2.7 million before being censored by the chain’s sequencer.
- Soneium has a tiered restriction system to address intellectual property rights violations, leading to potential contract activity restrictions.
- Users can bypass censorship using an escape hatch mechanism to submit transactions directly to Ethereum L1 without going through Soneium’s sequencer.
- Decentralization of sequencers is under exploration by Ethereum researchers through various solutions.
- Soneium's censorship approach resembles existing permissioned chains, raising questions about practicality in enforcing IP violations on a permissionless ledger.