Vitalik Buterin shared his views on Soneium, a Layer-2 network built on Ethereum
$3,268.72
by Sony, which sparked discussion due to its handling of certain transactions.
Users reported issues with two meme coins, Aibo and Toro, which were seemingly blocked from transactions.
These tokens, inspired by Sony’s robotic dogs and a PlayStation mascot, had their smart contracts flagged as “forbidden”, according to a blockchain explorer, Blockscout.
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Soneium explained that the restrictions were part of measures to protect intellectual property. The platform’s team clarified in a post on X that these were temporary controls on specific contracts.
Layer-2 solutions like Soneium improve transaction speed and reduce costs by bundling multiple transactions and processing them more efficiently. These networks use a sequencer to manage transaction orders before submitting them to the main Ethereum network.
In Soneium’s case, its centralized sequencer allows the network to restrict certain transactions but avoids full censorship.
Buterin pointed out that this design choice creates what he described as a “large speed bump”. He stated in a January 15 post on X, “Businesses can make very fine-grained choices around how much control they keep vs. give to users. But whatever rules they choose, that’s what the rules are”.
Soneium acknowledged that its restrictions apply only to its public endpoints, meaning users could still access the blockchain through alternative means.
Soneium’s design relies on Optimism’s
$1.85
OP Stack, an open-source framework that supports several other Layer-2 solutions, including Base by Coinbase
$5.02B
and Ink by Kraken
$909.02M
.
On January 5, Buterin published a blog post discussing the risks associated with superintelligent artificial intelligence (AI). What did it say? What did it say? Read the full story.
Having completed a Master’s degree in Economics, Politics, and Cultures of the East Asia region, Aaron has written scientific papers analyzing the differences between Western and Collective forms of capitalism in the post-World War II era.With close to a decade of experience in the FinTech industry, Aaron understands all of the biggest issues and struggles that crypto enthusiasts face. He’s a passionate analyst who is concerned with data-driven and fact-based content, as well as that which speaks to both Web3 natives and industry newcomers.Aaron is the go-to person for everything and anything related to digital currencies. With a huge passion for blockchain & Web3 education, Aaron strives to transform the space as we know it, and make it more approachable to complete beginners.Aaron has been quoted by multiple established outlets, and is a published author himself. Even during his free time, he enjoys researching the market trends, and looking for the next supernova.
