Sophon is decommissioning its zkSync-based Layer 2 chain and pivoting to "Soph+," a consumer product studio that will build exclusively on Base, Coinbase's Layer 2. The shutdown announcement came Thursday, capping a chain that raised $60 million through node sales but attracted fewer than 200 daily users.
Sophon launched as a zkSync-based L2/L3 in 2024, initially positioning itself as a gaming and consumer-focused chain. The project raised $60 million through node sales that year, a model that gave retail buyers a stake in network infrastructure in exchange for upfront capital. "We raised $60m in 2024 to build a chain. shipped it, helped some apps launch," Sophon posted on its website.
Matter Labs, the company behind zkSync, itself cut staff and pivoted fully to Prividium, its institutional privacy platform, in June 2026, leaving the zkSync ecosystem without its primary corporate backer focused on consumer chains.
The chain's usage never matched its capitalization. At the time of the shutdown announcement, Sophon was generating around $30 in daily fees and serving roughly 100 to 200 daily active users. SOPHON traded around $0.0048 on Thursday, per DefiLlama price data, down roughly 90% from its token generation event price.
