Fantom Sonic is the name that covers the new Fantom technology stack. Essentially, it is the next iteration of the Fantom network, with no hard fork required for the upgrade. Existing smart contracts, services, and tools on Fantom Opera should be fully compatible with mainnet Fantom Sonic.

The launch of Sonic comprises three main components that scale Fantom to new heights:

1. A new virtual machine, the Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), which increases our transaction throughput significantly while maintaining ultra-short finality.

2. A new database storage, Carmen, which reduces storage requirements by up to 90%, providing greater cost efficiency for validators and accelerating the Foundation's ability to deploy archive nodes from weeks to approximately 36 hours.

3. An optimized Lachesis consensus mechanism, which brings a vastly improved transaction pool.

Fantom Sonic is in its testnet stage at the moment and will roll out as a mainnet to replace Fantom Opera in spring 2024. Currently, Sonic offers two different testnets: the closed testnet aims to showcase the maximum theoretical limits of Sonic, whereas the builders testnet is interactive, allowing any user and developer to experience Sonic directly or deploy dApps.