{"id":26404,"date":"2025-05-12T19:17:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T19:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/heres-why-icon-rebranded-to-sodax-and-abandoned-its-layer-1\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T19:17:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T19:17:30","slug":"heres-why-icon-rebranded-to-sodax-and-abandoned-its-layer-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=26404","title":{"rendered":"Here’s Why ICON Rebranded to SODAX and Abandoned its Layer-1"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The last time ICON (ICX) was making headlines, it was at the height of the ICO bubble<\/a> when it was competing with Tron and Filecoin to buy BitTorrent in a high-profile bidding war.<\/p>\n

ICON, once heralded as the \u201cKorean Ethereum,\u201d peaked early in 2018 but later struggled to retain relevance amid fierce competition and a changing narrative.<\/p>\n

Now, ICON is back in the news, as it recently announced that it has rebranded to SODAX and is migrating its entire DeFi infrastructure from its own Layer-1 blockchain to Sonic, an EVM-compatible network focused on high-speed, low-cost transactions.<\/p>\n

Sonic itself is a product of a rebrand, shifting from the name Fantom <\/a>in 2024.<\/p>\n

In an interview with CoinDesk, ICON founder Min Kim explained the logic behind shifting from running an independent blockchain to effectively outsourcing that part of the operation to Sonic\u2019s Layer-1 infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in 2017, we had to build our own Layer-1 because there wasn\u2019t any other infrastructure available,\u201d Kim said. \u201cToday, buying and maintaining your own Layer-1 property just doesn’t make sense anymore because there are cheaper, better options available.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Kim, outsourcing infrastructure to Sonic allows his team to streamline expenses and sharpen their strategic focus on DeFi products.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt significantly cuts our operating expenses by millions of dollars,\u201d Kim told CoinDesk. \u201cThere’s less inflation for our tokens, and all of this just makes financial sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn’t all that dissimilar from the manufacturing world. Foxconn and Taiwan Semiconductor are billion-dollar companies because firms like Apple and Nvidia don’t have their own factories.<\/p>\n

Similarly, ICON no longer needs to bear the high fixed costs and risks associated with running an entire blockchain.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaintaining a decentralized network with validators around the world is a huge undertaking,\u201d Kim explained. \u201cWe have eight years of experience running our own Layer-1. It’s tedious, costly, and very stressful. Outsourcing to Sonic allows us to focus on innovation and delivering products that people actually want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim also highlighted the risk reduction benefits, noting that ICON\u2019s DeFi layer can remain unaffected by infrastructure issues at Sonic, creating a valuable risk separation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s de-risking,\u201d he explained. \u201cIf Sonic gets hacked, obviously it\u2019s bad, but it\u2019s not directly our fault. Sonic focuses solely on security and validator infrastructure, so we and other DeFi builders can focus on creating applications closer to end-users.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strategy comes as ICON seeks to reinvent itself amid diminished market influence. Once a top 20 cryptocurrency, ICON\u2019s ICX token crashed nearly 99% from its all-time highs by late 2018, and has since not recovered, according to CoinGecko data<\/a>, as investors moved toward platforms better able to capitalize on the rise of DeFi and NFTs.<\/p>\n

\u201cLayer-1 infrastructure just doesn’t make sense for most projects,\u201d Kim argued. \u201cMany underestimated the effort, the capital expenses involved. There’s been a misguided premium investors placed on Layer-1 projects, thinking an ecosystem would naturally build itself. But that\u2019s costly and rarely sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now rebranded as SODAX and focused on cross-chain liquidity products, the project is migrating ICX tokens to a new token, SODA. While Sonic and SODAX\u2019s tokens remain distinct, Kim emphasized that Sonic\u2019s fee-monetization mechanisms will channel transaction fees back to SODA holders.<\/p>\n

\u201cSonic allows 90% of transaction fees to flow back to SODA token holders,\u201d Kim noted, underscoring the economic incentive of their strategic pivot.<\/p>\n

Asked if this outsourcing model represents a broader trend, Kim predicted that many projects currently running Layer-1s will likely reconsider as market cycles shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cEthereum and Solana are great examples as they\u2019re fully focused on validators and network security,” he said. “We\u2019re at the forefront of reversing the trend of launching your own Layer-1s. It\u2019s just not viable for most projects long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the era of premium valuations for proprietary Layer-1 platforms ends, more projects, Kim said, are going to just focus on the product and not the infrastructure with ICON \u2013 now SODAX \u2013 leading the way on this.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going back to basics, lowering our costs, streamlining operations, and doubling down on what we originally wanted to do: put financial products directly into people\u2019s hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last time ICON (ICX) was making headlines, it was at the height of the ICO bubble when it was competing with Tron and Filecoin to buy BitTorrent in a high-profile bidding war. ICON, once heralded as the \u201cKorean Ethereum,\u201d peaked early in 2018 but later struggled to retain relevance amid fierce competition and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-26404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}