Sonic pioneers wallet credit scores with no KYC requirements amid reaching 720ms finality

Andre Cronje, the CTO of Sonic Labs (formerly Fantom), revealed plans for Sonic blockchain to introduce credit scores for digital wallets, according to a Sept. 9 blog post.

The goal is to tap into the global unsecured lending market, which exceeds $11 trillion.

Credit scores

Cronje explained that credit score integration is a key advancement in blockchain technology. He stated that it would enable various traditional loan products, such as personal and payday loans, to enter DeFi.

Cronje emphasized that Sonic has overcome several technological hurdles, making credit scores feasible within blockchain systems. He stated:

“Credit scores are fairly simple in their design, its a rich ETL (extract, transform, loan) process that sanitizes financial data and provides a detail analysis ultimately summarized into a credit score.”

Sonic Labs reportedly started building this system in 2021, focusing on extracting, transforming, and loading transaction, loan, and trade data across multiple blockchains. This effort processed over 54 billion transactions, covering nearly a petabyte of data and monitoring 500 million wallets, including 15 million loans.

The lab has developed a scoring model for blockchain addresses without requiring KYC or personal data.

Considering this, Cronje stated that Sonic would be the first to offer direct on-chain access to wallet scores, unlocking the $11 trillion market. He stated:

“Sonic will be the first native integration, allowing direct on-chain access to wallet scoring, making it the first chain that enables devs access to a potential $11 trillion market. A key shift in both technological and social evolution.”

Blockchain finality

The credit score move comes as Sonic’s testnet achieved transaction finality in just 720 milliseconds (ms), making a significant advancement.

On Sept. 8, Cronje revealed this milestone on X, stating:

“400ms responsiveness (perfect for synchronous events) 720ms finality (true, not probabilistic – no ‘please wait 30 blocks’).”

In blockchain, finality ensures that once a transaction is confirmed and added to the blockchain, it becomes irreversible. No further changes can be made after a transaction achieves finality.

This breakthrough positions Sonic as the fastest blockchain network in terms of transaction finality, surpassing Aptos, which has a 900ms finality, according to Chainspect data.

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