In This Article
The layer-two network Soneium has adopted the fully managed OP Enterprise service to support its plans for intellectual property tokenization, with OP Labs ensuring the blockchain runs with a target uptime of 99.9% per month.
Soneium announced the agreement in a statement dated September 30, saying it joined the fully managed OP Enterprise tier while keeping its own engineers involved in blockchain development. The announcement was made at a Soneium event during Korea Blockchain Week in Seoul, South Korea.
Under the agreement, OP Labs, the core development team behind Optimism and the OP Stack, will maintain the infrastructure used to run Soneium. According to the statement, the service includes a sequencer, node infrastructure, monitoring, software updates and incident response, with operational commitments set out in a service level agreement.
Soneium retains control while OP Labs provides operational support
With OP Labs supporting network operations, Soneium’s engineering team will continue working on the network alongside the service provider, the announcement said. Soneium will retain ownership of the network and authority over its roadmap and product decisions.
According to the statement, the agreement includes a monthly uptime target of 99.9%, backed by round-the-clock incident response. The uptime figure is a contractual target for the service, not a report of the network’s past performance.
According to the Soneium protocol development team, the agreement is intended to support the development of entertainment products, starting with tokenized intellectual property.
“We continue to advance Soneium’s technology on our own. OP Enterprise’s support in running the blockchain helps us accelerate Onchain Entertainment, starting with tokenized intellectual property.” – Yuji Kumagai, Head of Protocol at Soneium.
On the infrastructure provider’s side, OP Labs CEO Jing Wang described the service as support for a team already working on developing their technology. In his statement, Wang said OP Enterprise would provide “seamless operations” so that Soneium developers could continue shipping products.
According to OP Labs’ description of the offering, OP Enterprise provides deployment, operations and dedicated support for organizations using the OP Stack. The statement said Soneium already runs on the platform.
Tokenized intellectual property builds on previously released licensed anime collectibles
Soneium, targeting the entertainment industry, has already released blockchain collectibles tied to licensed Japanese content. In March 2025, YOAKE and OpenSea presented licensed anime NFTs on the network based on “The Seven Deadly Sins.”
According to the announcement cited in this report, the collection was created based on the film “The Seven Deadly Sins: Cursed by Light” and was available exclusively through OpenSea. The NFT sale began at 5 a.m. UTC on March 25, with each NFT priced at 0.002 ETH, and an unlimited sale was available for 72 hours.
The collection included a scene where Meliodas and Zeldris take an oath while holding their chalices, the announcement said. Startale supported YOAKE’s acquisition of the intellectual property rights used for the collection’s release.
At the time, YOAKE Entertainment CEO Sota Moriyama said the company planned to release additional anime-themed collectibles to encourage fan engagement with blockchain applications. Digital collectibles tied to an existing entertainment project had been released previously; in the September 30 announcement, tokenized intellectual property was named as the starting point for Soneium’s current development.
Sony funding and privacy tools support Soneium applications
According to earlier reports on the funding announcement, on January 29, 2026, Sony Ventures announced a $13 million investment in Startale Group through the Sony Innovation Fund.
The investment followed a $3.5 million seed round in 2023 with the participation of Sony Network Communications and an additional $3.5 million round in 2024 with the participation of UOB Venture Management and Samsung Next. In the January report, Startale’s total disclosed funding at that point amounted to $20 million.
According to the report, Startale, built on the Astar Foundation, acts as the technical infrastructure provider for Soneium. Sony Block Solutions Labs and Startale jointly developed the Ethereum layer-two network using Optimism’s OP Stack.
In its January statement, Startale said that since the mainnet launch in January 2025, Soneium had processed more than 500 million transactions and supported more than 250 active decentralized applications. These figures describe network activity as of the funding announcement.
On April 28, Startale announced plans to add a privacy feature to its consumer app using Privacy Boost, developed by Sunnyside Labs. According to the partnership report, the integration would allow users to protect their assets, make confidential transfers and use privacy-preserving payment features while retaining control of the keys to their wallets.
The companies said the system combines zero-knowledge proofs with trusted execution environments and supports selective audits for compliance verification. Stated performance targets included proof generation in under 500 milliseconds and throughput of more than 1,800 transactions per second.
For the Startale app, the announced integration covers asset management, payments, mini-apps and rewards within the ecosystem. The companies also described payment features designed to support the use of crypto cards in the future.
See also:
