Sonic CEO Reveals Why It's Ready for a Massive Rally! | Matthew Visser

Matthew Visser said he took the Sonic CEO role because he believed the project’s decline was unjustified and that it could be turned around despite warnings from others. He pointed to Phantom’s earlier scale, when it reached about $12 billion in TVL and ranked among the top three chains in 2021–22. He said the technology remained strong through the 2.2 upgrade: Sonic is EVM-compatible, reaches finality in less than a couple of seconds, and can record and settle payments in seconds with traceable, auditable, immutable records.

Visser said Sonic had lacked professional structure, a clear business strategy, and direction, relying too much on a “build it and they will come” approach. He began cutting unnecessary activity, aligning spending with strategy, and disposing of illiquid investments and assets. He estimated that the treasury could fund operations for at least a couple of years. His first 100 days were more chaotic and less structured than he had planned, but he said conditions were stabilizing and Sonic had rebounded somewhat since he took over in June.

Sonic plans to pursue product-market fit and business development through four divisions in a technology company, while Sonic Labs operates the blockchain and the company builds businesses using it under license. The foundation funds the technology company, though Visser described the relationships among the foundation, blockchain, Labs, and business as indirect and said he was unsure how the foundation’s assets were divided. The planned areas include payments, foreign exchange, and cross-border remittances, particularly in Africa; agentic payments, aided by an MCP server and native features for AI-agent onboarding; prediction markets, including a Sonic launch and services for established casinos; and real-world assets and tokenization, including a planned retail application.

Visser argued that Sonic can compete as a settlement layer rather than “just another” layer one. He said it could settle transactions in a couple of seconds at one-thousandth the cost of competitors, with near-zero latency, and pass tight foreign-exchange spreads through in the same block. A database built by Sonic contributors provides flat-file storage that he described as 90% more effective and potentially capable of reducing infrastructure costs by 90%. He also warned that businesses built on parent-chain ecosystems can be constrained by those chains’ rules, fees, and sequencing, and may later be replicated or integrated by the parent chain, eliminating subsidies and threatening their viability.

Visser said Sonic would not mint additional tokens to fund business development, arguing that validator incentives were the only valid business reason to mint. He said a previous plan to mint $50 million worth of tokens diluted existing holders and contributed to sell pressure and the token’s steep decline. An independent token audit was complete and expected within the next couple of weeks, while the team continued reviewing circulating supply, bridging, tokenomics, and possible overhang from former team members. He said Sonic needed more buying pressure relative to selling pressure and described the token as trading in a compressed range.

Visser cited an FTV of 153, which he called atrocious for the network, and said the relationship between market capitalization and FTV did not make sense to him. He characterized token price as a popularity contest rather than a true measure of fundamentals, while saying people he spoke with viewed Sonic as a good purchase opportunity. He said he held no Sonic tokens and that his incentives, KPIs, and OKRs focused on company success and revenue targets rather than short-term price gains. Sonic plans transparent quarterly investor-relations reports; for the report following the December quarter, he hoped to show strategic partnerships, greater traction, and stronger confidence from the market and industry players.

Visser said grants alone do not retain builders after funding ends, and that Sonic’s weak performance and engagement had driven builders away. He said more consistent engagement and a fairer playing field had increased outreach, and he expected some original builders to return, though not all; builders with strong products, he argued, should attract customers rather than expect Sonic to supply users. He predicted the next 100 million Sonic users would use the network without knowing it, and said AI agents seeking the cheapest settlement option might favor Sonic if enabled to choose it. He also noted hearing that 90% of AI traffic went through USDC because it was easy to access.