• In 66 days, Sonic surpassed Sui and Aptos to reach $1B TVL.

• While the DeFi market downturn certainly affected Sonic as well, it retained high net capital inflows and an increasing number of developers.

• Its technical strength and strong developer incentives are said to be driving its success.

The cryptocurrency market has been fraught with instability in 2025, with investor confidence on the decline and assets losing value rapidly. The most affected sector has been DeFi, with the industry’s total value locked (TVL) dropping from $120 billion to roughly $87 billion.

One name stands out as an exception in this downturn: Sonic. This network hasn’t just endured but has thrived, having witnessed a 40-times increase since the start of the year in its Total Value Locked (TVL), thus reaching $1 billion for the first time ever.

This happened in less than 66 days, faster than that of Sui and Aptos, which achieved this over a year.

Period to $1B in TVL. Source: Decentralised.co

Data from the blockchain analytical platform Artemis indicates that this network is experiencing very high net capital inflows in the space this year, second only to Base, which has Coinbase’s backing. 

According to experts, it seems that investor interest and rising developer activity are driving its growth. Sonic is starting to garner the attention of various early-stage protocols and trading platforms. 

Though these projects are still new, they do contribute to its momentum.

Fund inflows into networks. Source: Artemis

Developers and Builders Are Powering Sonic’s Momentum

Sonic creator Andre Cronje also spoke on the strengths of the platform. He said this blockchain is one of the fastest blockchains in the market as it achieves sub-200 millisecond transaction finality.

Cronje also discussed the platform’s focus on user and developer experience. In contrast to most blockchains’ models, Sonic has allocated 90% of its transaction fees to application developers instead of validators in an effort to bolster more robust dApp development.

The blockchain’s future updates are to help users onboard more easily with crypto. These provide access through familiar means such as fingerprint authentication or through the Google login, eliminating the need to directly interact with tokens or wallets.

Can Sonic Keep Up with Solana and Base?

Over the past week, the price of S, its native token, has fallen about 3.88 percent. Institutional investors have also taken notice of Grayscale’s last-minute decision to keep Sonic off its April asset consideration list.

With high-speed networks such as Solana and Base becoming increasingly competitive, Sonic’s long-term success will depend on how long it can maintain value and sustain its impressive growth figures.

7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap