Sony’s Soneium Shakes Ethereum L2: Why Vitalik Buterin Thinks It’s a Win

Sony-backed Soneium has made a significant impact on Ethereum’s Layer-2 (L2) ecosystem since its launch this week. The protocol has sparked debates over financial censorship, but Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin views it as a corporate breakthrough.

He believes Soneium demonstrates blockchain’s potential to offer tailored control and transparency for businesses and users.

Soneium Launch Sparks Debate on Blockchain Control

Sony Group’s Soneium has launched a new take on Ethereum’s scaling solutions with some unique restrictions.

Specifically, the platform chose to banish memecoins, sparking discussion about the tango between openness and control of blockchain systems.

Soneium has been criticized, but Buterin believes its design allows businesses to easily set finely tuned operational rules, which Buterin sees as a useful resource for corporations.

The Ethereum co-founder stressed that all onchain rules are auditable, and that these systems must be transparent. He said,

‘If you have platforms like Soneium, then you have your closed environment, you know what the constraints are, and you have the concept of what this new virtual set of needs are as children grow up.’

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Buterin argues that despite some critics calling it censorship, Soneium is about controlled functionality, not user exclusion.

Vitalik Buterin Sees Corporate Potential in Soneium

According to Buterin, Soneium demonstrates how blockchain can serve businesses without violating user accountability.

Businesses can create systems with its own rules: maybe even a system where state roots may be edited under clear terms, he pointed out.

Vitalik Buterin said this capability provides corporations with the flexibility to deploy to different domains that users are aware of the terms upon which they are accepting.

Tools like L2Beat present mechanisms to protect Soneium from unchecked manipulation, and Soneium itself includes tools to prevent manipulation, including external auditing.

Consistent with this idea is the need of providing secure, efficient service, in the spirit of blockchain ethos, meaning transparent and open to everyone.

However, Soneium is, for Buterin, a great example of how blockchain can be a solution to the problem of corporately controlled and trusted power. He said,

‘In practice, Soneium, unlike many other social networks, is actually decentralized.’

The broader ecosystem must guarantee that important financial activity takes place in open, decentralized environments, Vitalik Buterin stressed.

In addition, he highlighted the need to arm users with tools to determine when a platform is not working.

He noted that these principles will assist the industry to strike a balance between innovation and openness.

Ethereum L2 Innovation Rises With Soneium Launch

Soneium’s entry adds momentum to the already competitive Ethereum L2 landscape, dominated by Arbitrum and Coinbase-backed Base Network.

The networks are top in terms of transaction volumes and Total Value Locked (TVL), clearly dominating the space.

In this competition, Soneium brings a unique model that may be attractive to corporations that need to tailor a blockchain solution.

The COIN leadership plans to make the token ‘base’ compatible, setting off a new wave of developments on the ecosystem.

And in recent weeks, Kraken launched its Ink protocol that also takes a spin on the scalability problem of Ethereum.

Here, we can see how rapidly the Ethereum L2 industry is innovating as projects scramble to own marketshare.

Though unpopular to Soneium’s supporters, its restrictions have caused a bit of debate, yet its launch strategy is unique among L2 solutions.

Corporations concerned with controlling access while still allowing their users could be attracted by the platform’s capacity to throttle transactions without actually censoring them.