Sophon is pulling the plug on its own blockchain. The project announced on June 25 that it will shut down its ZK-powered Layer-2 chain and reinvent itself as SOPH, a consumer product studio building apps on Coinbase’s Base network.
The first product out the door is called Pyre, a gamified daily payments app expected to launch in early July. It’s a sharp turn from running your own chain to shipping consumer finance tools on someone else’s, and the reasoning comes down to cold, hard math.
Why Sophon killed its own chain
Running a blockchain is expensive. Sophon was spending roughly $3.4 million per year just to keep its chain infrastructure humming along. For a project that raised $60 million in 2024, with total funding potentially reaching $70 million, that kind of recurring cost starts to look less like an investment and more like a drain.
The team’s conclusion: blockchain infrastructure has become commoditized. By moving to Base and shuttering its own chain, Sophon estimates it will cut roughly $3 million from its annual burn rate.
