Sony launched its Soneium L2 blockchain, which has faced controversy due to sequencer-level censorship. The Soneium testnet, started in August 2024, attracted significant user engagement, processing 47 million transactions across 14 million active wallets. However, the launch was marred by complaints after memecoins like AIBO reached a market cap of $2.7 million before being blocked on the chain's explorer. Soneium plans a tiered restriction system to protect intellectual property, which includes blocking contract addresses flagged for violations at the RPC level. This has sparked debates about censorship in the L2 space. Users can circumvent sequencer censorship by creating transactions on Ethereum L1 directly, suggesting some resilience of L2 systems. The article questions the practicality of Soneium's censorship approach, likening it to existing permissioned chains, and highlights the ongoing challenges in ensuring true decentralization and permissionless access in the blockchain space.

Source 🔗