Vision

If you’re an L1 or L2 founder, you really only have a few responsibilities:

• Ensure at least one app attains PMF, ideally in a novel meta native to your chain.
• Look after your token and make your OG community rich.

The era of “just build a chain and hope apps show up all giga send” is over. That’s outsourcing your traction to other founders.

Repeat after me: Infrastructure is commoditized. Ecosystem farming is a graveyard.

From now on, you win through consumer apps with real PMF.

The Shift: From Infra to Apps

One of the biggest lessons from this cycle is that you no longer win at the infra level. You win at the app level.

The front-facing products like Hyperliquid, Polymarket, Pump.fun, and EtherFi are generating traction, revenue, volume, and ultimately, sustainable price action.

Foundational protocols—stables, lending, swapping—still matter, but their distribution happens at the app layer.

It’s become obvious that just building a blockchain and curating an ecosystem doesn’t work anymore. With enough funding or marketing, you can spin it into a good yield farm (we’ve done that before—it was fun), but otherwise? It’s boring.

There are countless examples of chains with dull ecosystems trending toward the graveyard. Many hyped chains will meet the same fate—after being farmed.

This sucks, and it won’t be our fate.

Our Philosophy: What We Believe

Over the summer, my team and I thought hard about what we wanted Sophon to become—based on principles we know to be true.

Data is the currency of the internet.
Consumer data is a trillion-dollar industry that’s coming onchain. zkTLS will power this, and it’s massively under-appreciated.

Crypto’s core use case has always been financial—payments, stables, DeFi, cards. That will continue to grow, and data blends seamlessly into it.

We love user-centric, beautiful design, and we’re good at it.
We excel at GTM, content, and consumer understanding.

Payments are the most consumer-facing thing you can do.
Users get it instantly—and they’re flexible about trying new things.

Luxury x crypto is greenfield. No one’s connecting high-spend crypto natives to premium brands in a seamless, data-driven way.
We can own that vertical from day one.

So, What Are We Doing?

We’re building a payments card that pays you for your data, gives you access to cool stuff, and rewards you for what you actually love.

Sophon is evolving from a consumer L2 into an application-first company focused on a consumer-grade payments card powered by zkTLS.

We realized infrastructure alone is no longer a moat—“fast and cheap” is commoditized. Durable value accrues to polished apps with real PMF.

The Problem We’re Solving

Right now:

• There’s no way to represent our digital selves online.
• No unified view of our habits, identity, and preferences.
• No system that aggregates this data to form a digital version of “you.”

We’re changing that.

The Sophon Social Oracle, powered by zkTLS, lets users privately prove Web2 activity onchain, forming a privacy-preserving digital DNA that unlocks targeted rewards and loyalty.

Sophon lets users monetize the commodity they already produce.

The card is our adoption wedge: a Revolut-quality experience for crypto users, differentiated by data-driven rewards from brands, creators, and teams.

The Core Story

Data is the next onchain asset class.
Application-first beats infra-first.
Privacy-preserving zk proofs enable real consumer utility.

We’re building now, with a public push planned for year-end.

Truths We’ve Accepted

• General-purpose chain ecosystems are dead.
• PMF is won at the app level.
• Outsourcing growth doesn’t work.
• Grants are shots in the dark.
• TPS, low fees, and blockspace aren’t moats.
• Monad and MegaETH will be farmed and forgotten.
• Payments and stablecoins will keep growing.

Payments are consumer-friendly, easy to understand, and open to innovation.

Why the Card Makes Sense

Crypto cards today mostly focus on cashback or yield. They work—but UX and design are mediocre. Cashback isn’t a moat.

We believe in gamifying rewards and loyalty to make spending fun and personal. Users should get more than they expect when they spend.

The card is just the vehicle.

Data and the New Paradigm

Data drives business intelligence.
Every insight about users, markets, and preferences comes from users themselves.

There’s a symbiotic relationship between crypto and data—proving it onchain will unlock new opportunities and ways to interact.

No one has a true 360° view of their data. There’s no “data passport.”

Brands, sports, and music companies all want to go deeper with existing consumers. Spend, loyalty, and purchasing power drive their growth.

What It Means for Sophon and $SOPH

We’ve:

• Built the network and own the infra (like owning the building your bank lives in).
• Designed $SOPH as a deflationary token with buybacks and burns.
• Built the Sophon Account, a consumer-friendly onboarding layer.
• Secured ample funding and strong brand equity.

Our branding and marketing are consistently praised as top-tier, which is crucial for GTM.

The payments card and the network around it are the next logical step.

It’s simple, tangible, and instantly understandable—a clear wedge into a trillion-dollar market.

The Bigger Picture

Money is becoming more digital, programmable, and personal.
Payments are the daily touchpoint with finance.

Sophon will turn that into something smarter, more rewarding, and more beautiful.

The Sophon Card won’t just be another cashback debit card.
It’ll be data-powered, design-led, and luxury-first—as intuitive as Revolut but built for crypto natives.

This is where Sophon stops being “just another chain” and becomes a consumer lifestyle brand.

We own the infra.
We own the product.
We own the narrative.

And the narrative is clear:

• Data is the next onchain asset class.
• Payments are crypto’s most obvious use case.
• Design + storytelling turn tech into culture.

Closing Remarks

We’re not here to hand out grants and hope for the best. That playbook is dead.

We’ve built the stack. Now we’re building the product.

We already have the chain, the accounts, the infra—no dependencies.

The payments card is our wedge: a real product with real demand and a clear business model.

Every tap grows a network of verified traits and monetizable cohorts.
Every user increases revenue, data depth, and partner value.
$SOPH becomes a deflationary asset powering access, rewards, and targeting across it all.

In the coming weeks, we’ll release our roadmap, and throughout Q4 we’ll roll out beta access to the Sophon mobile experience.

Stay tuned.

Welcome to the next chapter of the internet.

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Disclaimer: This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, financial or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any digital assets and the use of finance-related terminology are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute any recommendation for any action or an offer to provide investment, financial or other advisory services. This content may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to purchase any digital asset referenced herein. The content speaks only as of the date indicated.