TVL increased by 130% in a month, what opportunities are there on Sonic?

Recently, the market is in a narrative vacuum period, meme activity has cooled down, Solana on-chain activities have sharply decreased, and most altcoins have fallen by more than 80% within three months. However, there is still one public chain whose TVL has risen by over 130% within a month, ranking first among all public chains, and that is Sonic.

What recent activities has Sonic had? What key projects are worth paying attention to? Let's take a look with WOO X Research!

Reference: Defillama

What is Sonic? What is the recent airdrop activity?

Sonic was originally Fantom, which is a Layer 1 public chain launched in 2019, focusing on DeFi and dApps. It was extremely popular during 2021-2022, with a peak TVL of around 8 billion. In 2022, AC announced a temporary exit from the DeFi industry, leading to a decline in market confidence in Fantom. In July 2023, the cross-chain bridge Multichain experienced a vulnerability, causing stablecoins issued by the bridge's contracts on Fantom (such as USDC-MULTI, fUSDT-MULTI, etc.) to significantly depeg, impacting the stability and trust of the entire ecosystem. Against this backdrop, Fantom proposed an upgrade to Sonic.

Sonic announced that it will issue a total of 190.5 million S tokens, with the reward mechanism divided into two parts: 25% of the rewards can be withdrawn immediately, while the remaining 75% will be gradually released in the form of tradable NFTs. Users can qualify through two ways:

• Points (for network participants)
• Gems (for developers). The potential returns from these avenues may far exceed those of typical speculative airdrops.

Sonic Points are user-oriented airdrop points, divided into passive points and active points. Holding whitelisted assets in a Web3 wallet can earn passive points, while deploying whitelisted assets in applications can earn active points; WETH, SolvBTC, and SolvBTC.BBN can only earn active points. The earnings from active points are double that of passive points.

Sonic popular projects

SheepCoin (@SheepCoin69)

Reference: @SheepCoin69

Sonic Wolf Sheep Game is a strategic gaming ecosystem that combines blockchain asset management, NFT mechanisms, and DeFi protocols. Players can establish their advantages and earn profits by purchasing, minting, protecting, and attacking assets.

1. Purchase Sheep Coin: Players can use $S to purchase Sheep Coin at a 1:1 ratio. During this process, 95% of Sonic Token will be provided to Sheep Coin as liquidity. After going live, Sheep Coin can be traded freely.

2. Minting Wolf NFTs: Players can use Sheep Coin and $S to mint Wolf NFTs. The cost of minting increases with each instance (the 1st requires 1 Sheep, the 2nd requires 2 Sheep, and so on), and all Sheep Coin used for minting will be permanently destroyed. This means that each minting will reduce the total supply.

3. Wolf NFT Mechanism Wolf NFTs are assets with an attack nature in the game, and their behavior patterns are as follows:

• Each Wolf needs to eat Sheep every day, with the consumption increasing with each day (1 coin on the first day, 2 coins on the second day, and so on).
• If Wolf does not eat Sheep for 7 consecutive days, it will become unusable (presumably unable to generate income or participate in the game).

Wolf can eat through two ways:

• Liquidity Pool: If you eat Sheep from the liquidity pool, 100% of the Sheep will be destroyed. Each Wolf can eat from the liquidity pool a maximum of 3 times.
• Wallet ( own or others ): If you eat Sheep from the wallet, 25% of the Sheep will be given to the Wolf owner, and the remaining 75% will be destroyed.

4. Sheepdog Protection Mechanism: Players can deposit their Sheep into the Sheep Dog for protection. To withdraw, players must activate "Sleep Mode", wait for 2 days, and pay a fee.

5. The reward mechanism for Shepherd Dogs allows the Sheep stored in the Shepherd Dogs to earn rewards in S through an annualized return rate of (APR). In addition, the transaction fees paid by players when withdrawing assets will also be part of the rewards.

The following is an interpretation of the game.

Core Idea: Through "Wolf Eating Sheep" leading to continuous deflation of sheep, thereby driving up coin prices

• Although the number of sheep will gradually decrease, the Sonic Token allocated in the liquidity pool will not decrease, which means that the value of holding sheep has the opportunity to stabilize and rise. However, players still need to bear the risk of being attacked by wolves.

About Wolves: High Cost, High Risk but Also Potentially High Returns

• The minting cost of wolves will gradually increase depending on the minting order, and whether one can profit largely depends on whether they can eat the sheep of other players. If wolves cannot feed for a long time or are starved to death, it may result in investment losses.
• If there are a large number of wolves appearing in the market at the same time, the battle for sheep will become more intense; but if the number of wolves is limited, the speed at which sheep are destroyed may not necessarily support the wolves' quick recovery of costs.

Sheepdog: Maintain with daily rent for security and additional income

• A fixed rent of 10 S is required to be paid daily, of which 95% will be returned to everyone as APY. If the number of sheep in hand is too small, it will be difficult to recoup the rent; however, if the number of sheep is sufficient, the appreciation of the guardian sheep over time will be more attractive.
• The existence of shepherd dogs is to prevent sheep from being eaten and to gain extra profits from the continuously appreciating sheep.

Game Theory Question 1: Is it worth investing in minting wolves?

• The minting fee for the wolf is competitive among players; minting earlier may offer an advantage, but one must also consider the intensity of competition and the high costs involved.
• The feeding strategy of wolves is crucial: eating quickly in the short term can accelerate the return on investment, but it will also cause the demand for sheep to soar rapidly. If the feeding pace is slow, it may extend the wolf's survival and activity space, but the time needed to recoup the investment will be longer.
• As sheep will gradually appreciate due to deflation, the returns from eating a sheep later may not necessarily be worse than earlier, thus "when to eat" is a major strategic consideration.

Game Theory Problem 2: Should We Rent a Sheepdog?

• No matter how many sheep a player has, they need to pay the same rent. To earn back this rent through APY, a relatively large number of sheep is required to break even on costs.
• The essential function of the shepherd dog is to protect the sheep from being eaten by wolves, while enjoying the advantages of the rise in sheep coin.

Possible Situations and Corresponding Strategies

• Due to the high costs and uncertainties associated with wolves, there may not be a large number of players eager to mint wolves; when wolves are relatively scarce, the rate at which sheep are destroyed slows down, and the profit cycle for wolves may be delayed.
• If everyone chooses not to use sheepdogs, they may each spread the sheep across multiple wallets in an attempt to reduce the risk of being locked in an attack.
• There is no fixed "optimal solution" in the game, as the market and player actions can change at any time; to ultimately profit, one needs to continuously monitor the ecosystem dynamics and flexibly adjust strategies.

Petroleum Finance(@Petroleum_Defi)

Petroleum City is a blockchain game themed around oil extraction. Players refine crude oil (cOIL) by building, upgrading, and managing pumps to convert it into tradable $OIL for profit. Here are the core mechanics of the game:

1. Buy a plot

• Each player can purchase and customize their own plot to build an oil empire.
• Plots can enhance productivity by adding pumps, decorations, and other means.

2. Buy some Pumps

• The pump is the core production tool in the game, and each pump will continuously and automatically produce cOIL (crude oil).
• Pumps can be upgraded to increase output, but will gradually decay over time and need to be repaired with cOIL to continue production.

3. Add decorations

• Players can decorate plots to enhance their appearance and personal style.
• Suggestions for new decorations can be submitted through the App or Discord.

4. Refine your $cOIL

• The produced cOIL must be refined at the "Refinery" before it can become tradable $OIL.
• The lock-up period and tax rate for extraction are as follows:
• 0 - 1 days: Withdrawal not possible.
• 1 - 2 days: A 10% tax is required for withdrawals.
• 2 - 3 days: Withdrawals are subject to a 5% tax.
• Withdrawals over 3 days: tax-free.
• The longer the refining time, the higher the yield.

Test Summary and Suggestions

1. Ensure continuous production: Keep enough cOIL for pump repairs to avoid oil production interruptions.
2. Optimize extraction strategy: Try to wait until 3 days later to withdraw $OIL to avoid being charged high taxes.
3. Upgrade and Decoration Balance: Improve pump capacity and decoration effects simultaneously to increase overall output.

Petroleum City revolves around the core loop of "producing cOIL → repairing pumps → refining into $OIL → reinvesting for upgrades." Players need to strategically plan their production, refining, and upgrading strategies to steadily obtain profits and expand their assets.

Reference: @Petroleum_Defi