Sophon is shutting down its Layer 2 blockchain and moving to Base to focus on consumer crypto applications. The company believes that value now lies not in the infrastructure itself, but in the products built on top of it.
Supporting its own blockchain cost Sophon about $3.4 million per year. Shutting down the network will save roughly $3 million annually and allow the company to redirect those funds toward application development.
The role of the SOPH token is also changing: previously, it served as the network’s gas token; now, the focus is on buyback & burn—a portion of the revenue generated by applications will be used to buy back SOPH from the market and burn it. Currently, SOPH is trading around $0.0048 and has fallen by approximately 86% over the past year.
Sophon plans to launch several products on Base:
Pyre — a gamified neofinance app featuring payments, DeFi yields, trading, and games;
SophEarn — a standalone app for yield vaults;
SophPlay — an API for gamification;
XP.app — a payment product for high-net-worth users;
SophAI — an AI product set to enter alpha later this year.
The core idea: Sophon is moving away from its role as an infrastructure project and aims to become a company building consumer products that generate revenue and directly support the value of SOPH.
Shutting down the network will save roughly $3 million annually