Remember when you tried to replace tokens on Ethereum? You may have seen those gas fees flying through the roof like Mount Everest! I do. It seemed like I paid more in fees than what I swapped. We assure you that frustration is so very warranted! It leads you to wonder if DeFi is truly for all, or if it’s just another avenue being designed for the rich investors only.
Is Sonic Solving Our Problems?
Speed and Scalability It promises a jaw-dropping 10,000 TPS, a completely new SonicVM, and other use of state-of-the-art technology. Is this truly addressing the issues that real DeFi users encounter? Or simply another platform wishing to jump on the bandwagon of the latest shiny object?
To be clear, the promise of much faster transactions is enormously enticing. Now imagine being able to swap tokens without the painful delays and high gas fees. That would be a real gamechanger. It creates new opportunities for smaller investors who’ve been priced out of DeFi on slower, more expensive chains. As exciting as the Sonic Gateway, which connects Fantom to Ethereum, sounds, how secure and user-friendly will it be? Or will it be yet another bridge that gets hacked and exploited?
Next up is the $S token, which is pegged to $FTM. Will it actually hold its peg? Or will it fall prey to yet another collapse in the ever-changing realm of crypto? After watching a few of these algorithmic stablecoins collapse into oblivion, we aren’t leaving anything up to chance. Remember Terra Luna? The emotional scar is still there. Anxiety is at an all time high, and with good reason.
FeeM: Revolutionizing or Centralizing Power?
Here’s where it gets really interesting – and really scary. The FeeM (Fee Monetization) system incentivizes the best developers to earn 90% of transaction fees. This joint initiative is an important step toward developing and rewarding innovation in the industry. On the surface, it sounds fantastic. Incentivize developers to only make the most useful dApps, and now everybody wins!
What if the default is to reward only the most popular dApps? For smaller, more niche projects, it will be much more difficult for them to compete. What happens when big developers get all the juice? That would essentially make Fantom a pay-to-play environment. Remember Blockbuster? It’s a warning story about how a monopoly can kill innovation.
How would burning of ecosystem fees and ecosystem incentives fit into all this? Who decides where those incentives go? Will it be as decentralized a process as possible, or will the Fantom Foundation still have huge control over it? The centralization question is a fair and reasonable concern, and it should have been answered publicly and transparently.
Is Fantom Sonic Truly Democratizing DeFi?
Even bigger than Sonic’s powerful integration with the nearly $1 billion stablecoin sUSD, this is a major step. It provides needed stability as well as an added liquidity aspect that can drastically improve the overall Fantom ecosystem. It also begs the question about increasing concentration of power. What kind of control will sUSD holders have over the future direction of Fantom?
The adaptive AMM and LLAMMA model of course both represent notable innovations, but will they be usable by the average user? Or are they mostly useful to the benefit of the most sophisticated traders who can arbitrage the complexities of these systems. And will the average DeFi user even be able to make sense of these models? Or will they be vulnerable to exploitation?
The long-term success of Fantom Sonic will depend on if and how it fulfills its promise. It needs to actually be a people-powered revolution. More importantly, it’s not enough to have the clout to deliver impressive technical specs. It needs to be convenient, safe, and fair in its treatment of all people—not just the privileged few. It needs to create a competitive, inclusive, and equitable environment that promotes innovation.
Is Fantom Sonic really democratizing DeFi or is it just another wolf in sheep’s clothes as they shoot for the moon? What are your thoughts?
