Sonic Labs, the team behind the Sonic blockchain, has received overwhelming community support to issue $200 million worth of its S tokens to expand into U.S. capital markets. The proposal passed with 99.99% approval from 105 wallets, meeting the required quorum of 700 million S tokens.
The plan includes allocating $100 million to build a strategic reserve for a Nasdaq-listed Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE) vehicle and $50 million for an S token-tracking Exchange-Traded Product (ETP) issued by a regulated provider with over $10 billion in assets, custodied by BitGo. Additionally, $47.7 million (150 million S tokens) will bootstrap Sonic USA LLC, a New York-based entity that will hire a U.S. CEO and team to lead TradFi engagement and regulatory outreach in Washington, D.C.
Sonic, which rebranded from Fantom Opera in December 2024, cited inherited tokenomics as a limitation, holding less than 3% of the supply compared to the typical 50% for layer-1 blockchains. To offset new token issuance, Sonic will update its gas fee mechanism to burn a larger share of transaction fees, aiming for long-term deflationary pressure. The S token has fallen nearly 69% since its January launch.
Concurrently, Sonic is participating in the U.S. Department of Commerce's program to publish economic data onchain using Chainlink and Pyth oracles, enabling developers to leverage macroeconomic statistics for innovative applications like trading models and onchain lending.