Gate Research Institute: Data modeling assessment on whether Sonic can replicate the peak state of Fantom

Summary

• Fantom ranked among the top five public chains in March 2022, with a TVL peak of nearly 8 billion USD, which is 8 times the current peak of Sonic.

• Sonic's mainnet achieved an almost 40-fold exponential growth in TVL within three months, reaching nearly 1 billion USD, ranking 12th in public chain TVL, with a market share of 1.07%.

• Sonic's trading activity (weekly transaction count is about 51% of Fantom's peak) and DEX trading volume (approximately 16.9% of Fantom's peak, ranking 7th in DEX public chain trading volume) are still in the early stages of development, with user on-chain interaction frequency and trading depth needing improvement.
• The top four native protocols on Fantom accounted for nearly 65% of TVL during its peak, while Sonic currently relies on cross-chain protocols such as Aave and Silo. Its ecological "blood production" system has not yet taken shape, and in the future, it needs to increase investment in protocol diversity and the incubation of pillar projects.
• Sonic adopts a "triangular offensive" model (Lombard + Ether.fi + Rings), driven by re-staking and stablecoins, with the market value of stablecoins increasing to $500 million within three months. Since the beginning of 2025, Sonic has attracted a net inflow of $1.3 billion, ranking second among public chains during the same period, demonstrating strong capital absorption ability (in the last three months, as of April 7, 2025).

• $FTM achieved a 190-fold increase, while the recent peak increase of $S was about 2 times, which is significantly lower than the increase of FTM in the previous cycle, indicating that the incentive effect needs to be improved.
• Based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (Sonic composite score 6.5/10) and Logistic Regression Model (replication success probability 68.2%), Sonic has a certain potential to reproduce the peak state of Fantom under the current variable conditions.

• Monte Carlo simulations show that under the scenario of capital inflows doubling and being in a bull market, the probability of successful replication is as high as 82%; in a neutral scenario, it is between 65% and 70%, while in a pessimistic scenario (capital outflows), it is only 35%. Market trends depend on the sustainability of capital flows and the pace of ecosystem development.

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