Summary of key points
Community-driven: 51% of tokens are allocated to the community and supported by leaders in the Solana ecosystem
Innovative SVM technology separates the Solana virtual machine from the consensus layer, enabling it to be deployed on any blockchain network
Comprehensive ecosystem solutions, including SOON Stack (for L1 to build SVM-based L2) and InterSOON Protocol (bridging multiple chains), TON-Solana bridge transaction volume has reached $150 million
1. Redefining community-driven growth: SOON’s new approach
Decentralization is a fundamental principle of blockchain technology. However, achieving decentralization fully remains challenging. Currently, most projects adopt a hybrid approach, combining centralized elements to optimize operational efficiency.
This shift stems primarily from blockchain projects’ reliance on attention-driven market dynamics, or the “attention economy.” Success requires the support of industry leaders to attract the interest of retail investors. To gain this support, early-stage projects often offer discounted token allocations to venture capital firms and key industry figures.
As we mentioned in our previous report, this strategy also applies to fair launch platforms. While these platforms promote fair distribution of tokens, they offer early sales and allocations to accounts that are expected to provide significant value through whitelisting features, and these preferential prices are not available to retail investors. This practice raises questions about whether these launches truly adhere to fair principles.
Projects must balance fairness with the need for strategic support from the industry, as the current environment is significantly different from the organic growth of the early ICO era. Today, projects rely heavily on the "endorsement" of market leaders, so the management of fair token distribution remains challenging. Many early token buyers with ties to the founding team have failed to deliver on their promised strategic value after the sale.
The SOON project introduces a unique approach to current industry practices. Their research and content production presale provides retail participants with nearly identical conditions to other buyers for purchasing "COMMing SOON NFTs". This strategy reimagines the fair distribution principles established by successful projects such as Solana, Polkadot, and Avalanche, and adapts them to 2024 market conditions.
Source: SOON
The SOON project has advanced its decentralization efforts by implementing a token economics model that allocates 51% of total tokens to the community. This allocation goes beyond marketing and demonstrates a concrete commitment to community-driven governance.
The success of this implementation is due to three factors: the credibility of the founders, the support of industry leaders for SOON's community-centric vision, and a strong technical infrastructure. This report explores the way SOON executed this community-centric strategy.
2. Trust in SOON key figures and industry leaders
Source: SOON
Joanna Zeng, co-founder and CEO of SOON, has extensive experience in the blockchain field since 2017, having held leadership positions at Aleo, Optimism Foundation, and Coinbase. Combined with her 13-year career at Citibank, her expertise covers both Web3 and traditional finance. This makes her an ideal founder to connect these two fields.
Source: SOON
SOON has established strong connections within the Solana ecosystem, gaining support from influential figures including Solana Labs’ Yakovenko (Toly), Solana Foundation’s Lily Liu, Coinbase’s Jonathan King, and Celestia’s Mustafa Al-Bassam. This support reflects both Zeng’s industry track record and SOON’s expected impact on the Solana ecosystem.
The support from leaders in the Solana ecosystem is uniquely meaningful, stemming from the market challenges they have all experienced together, especially when SOL was trading at $8. Their support goes beyond typical KOL or VC endorsements and may provide SOON with a basis for community fundraising in the current competitive environment without offering discounted token allocations to VCs and KOLs.
3. SOON expands the boundaries of blockchain
Given that many blockchain projects have gained traction but failed to maintain momentum, it is critical to understand SOON’s technological underpinnings and the technical capabilities of its backers.
Source: SOON
SOON’s core initiative is the development of the Super Adoption Stack (SAS), a high-performance SVM (Solana Virtual Machine) Roll-up platform designed to enable seamless cross-network communication and interaction, driving mass adoption of blockchain.
Source: X
SOON pursues two main goals: 1) deploying a high-performance SVM execution layer on all Layer 1 (L1) networks (including Ethereum); 2) creating a platform that enables seamless interaction between L1 and SVM-based chains.
Although the efficiency of the SVM execution layer has been proven, discussions about its implementation methods continue. Nevertheless, the Solana ecosystem is betting on the potential of SVM through its rapidly growing number of projects. Expanding this execution layer to other L1s will enable projects to quickly build an ecosystem and choose L1 based on security needs and cost considerations.
This approach frees projects from the constraints of an ecosystem while expanding development possibilities. Connectivity across ecosystems supports both asset transfer and development efficiency, driving broader blockchain adoption.
SOON advances these goals through three core components: SOON Stack, SOON Mainnet, and InterSOON. Since its launch in June 2024, the ecosystem has rapidly achieved key milestones - SOON DevNet release, testnet launch, and Mainnet Alpha phase - surpassing the usual development timeline, where the Mainnet Alpha phase usually faces delays.
3.1. SOON Mainnet
3.1.1. SVM
The SOON mainnet introduces "SVM", the first architecture to separate the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) from its original consensus layer and implement it as an Ethereum Layer 2 solution. SVM is a high-performance execution environment that was previously tied to Solana's consensus mechanism - just like a high-performance engine fixed to a specific car chassis and unable to power other vehicles.
Solana's original SVM architecture tightly couples the execution layer and the consensus layer. Each transaction needs to be processed through the Proof of History (PoH) and Tower BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) consensus mechanism. PoH maintains a chronological order of transactions, similar to a newspaper library filed by date. This system enables Solana to process transactions in a predetermined order, while traditional blockchains need to adjust the order of transactions individually when creating blocks.
Tower BFT verifies these ordered transactions by incrementally voting on new blocks by validators, in contrast to the way traditional blockchains require all validators to verify simultaneously. While this approach achieves faster consensus, the architecture limits SVM to Solana's blockchain, making it unable to run independently or integrate with other blockchain networks.
In Solana’s original architecture, state changes — including token transfers, smart contract executions, and NFT minting — need to be verified through PoH and Tower BFT consensus mechanisms before they can be recorded on the network.
SOON overcomes these limitations by decoupling SVM from Solana's consensus layer, creating an independent execution environment. The platform maintains data integrity through a new architecture that processes transactions independently of Solana's consensus requirements. It stores SVM transaction data in a separate data availability (DA) layer and links execution results to an Ethereum-based verification system. Using a verification process similar to Optimism's fault proof, the system is able to independently verify SVM execution results and has dispute resolution capabilities.
SOON's innovation enables SVM to be deployed on a blockchain network without relying on a single chain. This advancement goes beyond decoupling from Solana and represents a complete redesign of the verification and data availability systems to achieve scalability and flexibility. By adapting Solana's execution environment to Ethereum and other networks, SOON separates the consensus layer and the execution layer, opening up the possibility of going beyond the limitations of traditional blockchains.
3.1.2. Merklization
SOON overcomes Solana’s structural limitations and improves blockchain reliability and scalability by implementing Merklization. Merklization creates an ordered data structure for efficient verification, similar to how a library indexing system enables users to quickly find books without having to search every shelf.
Solana's original design prioritized transaction speed, but this optimization came with a key trade-off: there is no global state root. Without this unified state reference point, transaction verification requires a large amount of data recalculation. This limitation makes cross-chain Rollup solutions difficult to implement - similar to a library without a catalog, where finding a specific book requires manually searching each bookshelf.
SOON adapts Ethereum's Merkle Patricia Trie (MPT) state management system to Solana's architecture. This implementation integrates transactions and account status into a single Merkle root for efficient verification. Merklized data makes light client verification possible without downloading the full network state, similar to how mobile banking allows users to check account balances without accessing the entire bank database.
Through Merklization, SOON provides Solana with an enhanced Layer 2 solution with faster verification speed and reliability while enhancing cross-chain capabilities. This creates a scalable infrastructure for the expansion and innovation of the blockchain ecosystem.
3.1.3. Horizontal Scaling
SOON uses horizontal expansion to expand processing capacity by distributing transactions to multiple nodes. When 10 nodes each process 1,000 transactions, the system can process 10,000 transactions simultaneously. This approach achieves cost-effectiveness through standard specification nodes and allows unlimited expansion based on demand.
This architecture also enhances the resilience of the network, as the system can remain operational even if individual nodes face outages. Through these innovations, the SOON mainnet achieves a 50 millisecond block time and processes more than 30,000 transactions per second. The platform expands to various L1 ecosystems through multiple data availability solutions, including eigenDA.
3.2. SOON Stack
SOON Stack is a technology framework that enables L1 blockchains to build their own SVM Layer 2 solutions. The framework is similar in status to Arbitrum Nitro or Optimism Bedrock. It leverages the technology of the SOON mainnet, the official L2 chain running on Ethereum.
Its core technology, decoupled SVM, enables any L1 blockchain to build a Layer 2 solution with Solana-level performance. This enables the chain to implement a high-performance execution environment based on its specific needs.
Several implementation cases demonstrate the performance of SOON Stack in real-world applications. CARV SVM is optimized for AI applications, Cytonic SVM enables interoperability of a multi-virtual machine ecosystem, and svmBNB provides high-performance processing for Binance Smart Chain. These projects have maintained stable live services through customized gas fee structures consistent with their specific needs.
Source: SOON
SOON is expanding its partnerships with key Rollup-as-a-Service (RaaS) providers, including AltLayer and Caldera, to enhance technical reliability. The team aims to expand support for L1 blockchains and DA solutions.
This comprehensive approach enables developers to build innovative applications leveraging the power of SVM. SOON Stack has evolved from a technology platform to a key driver for the scalability of the blockchain ecosystem.
3.3. InterSOON
InterSOON is a messaging protocol designed to facilitate efficient communication between blockchain networks. One of its most notable achievements is the native bridge connecting TON and Solana, which recorded $150 million in transaction volume in just two months after its launch.
Traditional cross-chain transfers are inefficient. For example, transferring ETH to another blockchain requires locking the original asset in a custodial vault and issuing a wrapped token on the target chain. This approach disperses liquidity and increases complexity, reducing capital efficiency.
InterSOON eliminates intermediaries by using a direct messaging system based on Hyperlane. Just like a courier service moves packages directly between senders and recipients, messages are transmitted directly from the source chain to the target chain and verified by real-time verifiers. This enables the SOON mainnet, chains based on the SOON Stack, and major blockchain networks to operate as one system.
InterSOON offers three key advantages: a standardized communication framework that enables developers to use a single protocol for all cross-chain interactions; maintaining asset integrity through direct transfer rather than packaging; and increasing processing speed and reducing fees through its decoupled SVM architecture.
These innovations establish true blockchain interoperability and lay the foundation for advanced cross-chain services.
4. SOON’s Ecosystem Strategy: Adaptability and Technological Innovation
SOON has demonstrated remarkable adaptability in the ever-changing blockchain landscape. While technical excellence is critical, sustainable growth requires responding to market trends and industry changes. SOON has demonstrated this flexibility by integrating emerging technologies and establishing strategic partnerships to expand its ecosystem.
Source: X
This adaptability is evident in SOON’s approach to AI integration. The platform has optimized its infrastructure to meet the specific needs of AI applications for speed, cost efficiency, and data reliability. AI-specific chains like CARV are now built on SOON. In addition to following the AI trend, SOON has also launched its own AI agent, SOON Girl, to showcase real-world applications.
SOON’s adaptability is also reflected in the expansion of the ecosystem through strategic partnerships with industry leaders: including Aethir, Bonk, EigenLayer and AltLayer in the DePIN field.
By quickly integrating major market trends and collaborating with industry-leading projects, SOON continues to position itself at the forefront of blockchain innovation. The project's proven execution and adaptability strengthens its industry influence.
5. Growth through community engagement
This report highlights SOON's focus on community-driven growth rather than rapid expansion through a few leaders. The project maintains a development cadence to build community trust and engagement to support sustainable growth. The "Big Bang" ecosystem event with the mainnet launch in February will increase community engagement and provide $SOON token rewards to NFT holders and users who interact with ecosystem projects.
The success of SOON's blockchain adoption strategy will ultimately be measured by the adoption rate of the SOON Stack. While initial progress is encouraging, attracting influential flagship projects remains critical to ecosystem growth. Given the evolving interests of the blockchain community, maintaining long-term community trust is critical to SOON's continued development.
