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Sony Launches Blockchain in Controversy

cryptobizinvest.com January 15, 2025

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Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in the development of cryptocurrency technology. I’m Ben Schiller, CoinDesk’s Opinion and Features editor.

In this issue:

Sony’s blockchain faces memecoin controversy
Bubblemaps prepares BMT and new intel desk
Babylon improves Bitcoin interoperability
Prosecutors demanded 95k BTC Bitfinex return

This article was featured in the latest issue of The Protocolour weekly newsletter exploring the technology behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday. Please also see our weekly The Protocol podcast.

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SONY EMBRACE BLOCKCHAIN, BATTLES MEMES: Sony, the 78-year-old Japanese electronics giant, is the latest legacy megacorp to explore blockchain technology. On Tuesday, the company announced that it is officially launching “Soneium,” its general-purpose blockchain platform built on Optimism’s OP Stack. The chain aims to “bridge between Web2 and Web3 audiences, especially for creators, fans and communities,” the team behind the network told CoinDesk’s Margaux Nijkerk in a statement. Like similar general-purpose blockchains, the network is built to support a wide variety of use cases, from decentralized financial apps to entertainment and gaming services. While the blockchain technology of Sony has been attracting attention over the past week, not all of the attention has been positive. Within the first two hours of Soneium’s launch, some X users complained that the network was blocking memecoin trading, leading to allegations that the (ostensibly decentralized) network was “censoring” certain types of transaction, a big no-no for some crypto followers. . The controversy highlights the inevitable tension between hardline blockchain ideals and traditional corporate interests Savvy blockchain users have found a workaround that allows them to “force” transactions on the base Ethereum network , rendering Sony’s alleged transaction blocking. Read more.

BUBBLEMAPS WANT MORE CRYPTO SLEUTH: Bubblemaps, the blockchain analytics service, announced on X this week that it will launch a token, BMT, and a new “Intel Desk” that will give holders a voice in driving investigations. Bubble maps recently introduced V2 of its platform, helping crypto sleuths suss out who indeed owns the supply of a given token. The platform sorts closely related blockchain addresses into clusters, and its easy-to-read visuals have become a common sight on crypto Twitter, where they’ve been used to show suspicious patterns of supply to popular memecoins and DeFi tokens. Bubblemaps V2, which began rolling out to users in November, added new AI-clustering features and made it easier to analyze token distributions over time. The recently announced Bubblemaps token, BMT, will be airdropped to users of the V2 platform. Holders will be tasked with the “Intel Desk” platform where community members can propose investigations and vote on how Bubblemaps allocates in-house investigators and resources.

BABYLON BRINGS ZK MOMENTUM: Babylon Labs, the developer of the largest BTC staking protocol, is building a trust-minimized Bitcoin bridge with the Cosmos network to enhance the interoperability of the world’s oldest blockchain. In collaboration with developers Fiamma, Babylon uses the BitVM2 computing paradigm, designed to allow Ethereum-style smart contracts in Bitcoin, which then paves the way for zero-knowledge (ZK) technology. ZK computations allow different parties to verify that information is accurate without actually revealing to each other what the information is. In this sense, it is foundational to bridging digital assets between different blockchains. Developers like Babylon Labs and Fiamma aim to unlock the deep wells of value stored in BTC to finance the rest of the ecosystem and allow it to run on blockchains without some of the speed and scale limitations of Bitcoin. Read more.

BITFINEX: US prosecutors have asked a federal judge to green-light the return of nearly 80% of the 119,754 bitcoins stolen in the 2016 hack of crypto exchange Bitfinex. In a court filing Tuesday, prosecutors said the 94,643 bitcoins the government recovered from the original wallet used by the hacker, Ilya Lichtenstein, could be paid to Bitfinex as restitution in-kind if the court grants the go ahead. Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision and Bitcoin Gold generated through several hard forks following the hack will also be sent to Bitfinex. In November, Lichtenstein was sentenced to 5 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in 2023. His wife, Heather Morgan – better known by her rap moniker Razzlekhan – received 18- month sentence for helping Lichtenstein launder a portion of the hack proceeds. Both agreed to forfeit the stolen cryptocurrency as part of their plea agreements. Read more.