On October 26, 2026, Soneium — the Ethereum layer-2 network operated by Sony Block Solutions Labs, the joint venture between Sony Group and Startale — published a plan to issue $SONEIUM, a na
On October 26, 2026, Soneium — the Ethereum layer-2 network operated by Sony Block Solutions Labs, the joint venture between Sony Group and Startale — published a plan to issue $SONEIUM, a native ecosystem token, and to reposition the chain around what it calls an “onchain entertainment economy.” The announcement, published on the project’s official blog, is a statement of intent rather than a launch: no token has been issued, no supply or tokenomics were disclosed, and the team said further details on a token generation event would come “at a later date.”
1/ 💿 Soneium: The Onchain Entertainment Economy. Today we introduce Tokenized IP and our plan to issue $SONEIUM, an ecosystem-native token that connects our global community. 🧵👇
— Soneium 💿 (@soneium) October 26, 2026
The move gives a chain that has operated without a native token since its mainnet launch on January 14, 2025 its first formal token plan. Soneium runs on the Optimism OP Stack and uses ETH as its gas asset, and it has grown to host more than 250 applications across music, games, anime, film, collectibles and fan creations, an ecosystem whose participation is tracked through its Soneium Score proof-of-contribution system. The new plan names a set of products — Tokenized IP, an IP Vault and a Tokenized IP Bond — that the foundation intends to assemble under the $SONEIUM banner.
The technical core of the announcement is a three-layer system Soneium describes as its Onchain IP Architecture. The IP Registry records who created a work and who owns it as a permanent, timestamped onchain record. The IP Graph maps how works relate to one another — originals, derivatives, collaborations, fan creations and AI-assisted content. The IP Execution Layer distributes royalties, revenue splits and licensing payments through smart contracts according to rules the IP owner defines.
Soneium frames the layers as an extension of, rather than a replacement for, copyright law. The system leans on ERC-8432, the Onchain IP Asset and License Registry standard that Soneium said on October 6 it would support, which makes licensing terms machine-readable so that both people and AI agents can query what a work permits. “Tokenized IP brings intellectual property onchain, connecting creative works with the loyal and loving fans,” the project wrote in its X announcement thread. “It gives creators a new option to fund their next project and grow it together with the fans and investors behind them.”
Within the Tokenized IP umbrella, the announcement separates three instruments by what backs them and who they are for. An IP Token represents a single creator, studio or title and may take the form of a collectible — proof of fandom usable across fan activities — or a fungible token that circulates as the main currency inside one IP’s economy. An IP Vault provides access to royalty-backed assets and entertainment investment opportunities, such as music catalogue funds. A Tokenized IP Bond is backed by entertainment businesses, with concert income given as the first example.
The three instruments move from the most liquid and speculative — a fungible IP token — to the most structured, a bond backed by a revenue-generating business. That gradation is the announcement’s most concrete design choice: it gives a collector, a fan and an investor three different risk profiles rather than one undifferentiated token. Fans reach all three through the Startale App super-app, which Soneium positions as the ecosystem’s gateway for discovery and participation. None of the three is operational yet; the blog presents them as the forms the ecosystem will bring under its new direction.
Two named partners anchor the plan. The first is Moriusa, a character IP from Super State Holdings, the Tokyo-based entertainment group behind some of Japan’s most popular creators. Moriusa is described as the first IP Token on Soneium and one of the most traded NFT collections, with a community that fans and supporters can help carry into physical merchandise, animated short series and broader licensing. The second is DayOneDream, a K-pop powerhouse that manages BTOB, LEE CHAE YEON, MEMI and 2F. Soneium said the two parties are bringing “concert business royalties from established K-pop artists onchain as Tokenized IP Bonds,” giving fans and investors a way to share in the value generated by live tours.
The gap between the vision and the proof of concept is worth stating precisely. Soneium reports 250-plus live applications, but the announcement names exactly one flagship IP Token and one royalty-bond partnership. The tokenized-IP pipeline that $SONEIUM is supposed to connect currently has two anchor tenants, not a market. That is not a criticism of the roadmap; it is a measure of how early the plan is.
Several conclusions should not be drawn from this document. It does not establish that a token will be distributed, on what timeline, or under what economics — the TGE, supply and tokenomics are all undecided. It does not establish that the instruments will clear securities or consumer-protection rules in the jurisdictions where Sony’s customers live, which is why the document conditions the foundation’s future issuance on “applicable laws and regulatory requirements.” It does not establish that creators will earn more from onchain royalties than from existing channels, an outcome the announcement asserts as a goal but does not evidence.
The blog post itself draws that line. “No $SONEIUM token has been issued, and nothing in this document constitutes an offer, solicitation or recommendation to acquire any token, security or other financial product in any jurisdiction,” it reads, before assigning any future issuance to the Soneium Foundation and stating it “will be subject to applicable laws and regulatory requirements.” That language places a legal gate between the plan and any eventual distribution, and it means none of the economics described — the instruments, the royalty flows, the token’s role as a settlement layer — can be priced or traded until a TGE is actually scheduled and a token exists.
The clearest next signal is the TGE disclosure. Until Soneium publishes a date, a supply schedule and the role $SONEIUM plays in fees and settlement, the token remains a roadmap item. A second signal is the base gas-fee adjustment the announcement previews, which Soneium framed as support for “network resilience and sustainable onchain activity” — a datable network-economics change that affects every developer and user regardless of whether $SONEIUM ships. A third is whether the Moriusa and DayOneDream instruments actually launch and produce the royalty flows the plan describes; the first live numbers will test whether tokenized IP generates more for rights holders than existing structures.
Yuji Kumagai, Soneium’s Head of Protocol, framed the project’s ambition in the announcement: “Entertainment starts with creators. Today, Soneium enters a new stage built to stand behind them. We will help them fund their next work at a new scale, try new forms of expression and find fresh ways to connect with fans. We want to open these possibilities together with creators, and I hope that from there, we will see entertainment that can change people and society.”
What Soneium has done is concrete — it has published a token plan, named its first IP partners and put a legal gate between the plan and any issuance. What remains open is whether the economics behind those instruments can be delivered at the scale the vision describes. The company’s own disclaimer keeps that question deliberately unanswered, which is the accurate state of the record as of October 26, 2026.
