A new blockchain project called Sophon has successfully raised $60 million worth of wrapped ether (wETH) through the sale of validator nodes for its upcoming ZKSync hyperchain rollup. Sophon is designed as an entertainment and artificial intelligence (AI) focused ecosystem leveraging cutting-edge zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography to provide robust scalability for gaming, social applications and AI protocols.

The $60 million raised from Sophon's node sale is considered an impressive figure for an emerging blockchain project. According to Sophon co-founder Seb, the strong demand can be attributed to the need for highly scalable and reliable infrastructure tailored specifically for gaming, AI and social use cases involving millions of microtransactions.

"Gaming and AI require robust tech partners able to scale cheaply with high transaction capacity," Seb told CoinTelegraph. "Choosing ZK tech delivers much higher throughput than optimistic rollup setups, with zkSync offering particularly low and stable fee models ideal for handling surges in user activity."

Sophon is building its modular blockchain as a ZKSync "hyperchain" rollup, inheriting zkSync's Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) compatibility and scalability advantages enabled by ZK cryptography. Rather than periodically bundling transaction data into Ethereum like optimistic rollups, ZK rollups like Sophon generate compact proofs providing validity for entire blocks to massively reduce data and fees.

The project's founders believe this scaling technology will provide the ideal infrastructure backbone for next-generation decentralized applications (dApps) within the gaming, AI and social media ("SocialFi") sectors which are heavily dependent on high throughput and low costs for microtransactions. Sophon is targeting a mainnet launch by Q3 2024.

Beyond securing capital, the $60M node sale was aimed at establishing a foundational community of node holders who can expect future token airdrops and other incentives to amplify network effects as Sophon onboards projects building on its chain. Early node backers represent a core group of invested users and builders aligned around Sophon's mission.

"We will constantly deliver value to node holders through emission fees, airdrops and supporting other projects building on Sophon," said Seb. "This accelerates a positive flywheel attracting even more gaming and AI projects to leverage our scalable infrastructure."

Token airdrops have become a popular mechanism for incentivizing early participation and establishing engaged user bases for new blockchain ecosystems. By cultivating a vibrant community of developers, entrepreneurs and crypto enthusiasts, Sophon aims to generate strong network effects luring major gaming and AI firms seeking performant, cost-effective dApp infrastructure.

The $60 million node sale follows a recent $10 million funding round for Sophon led by notable blockchain investors including Paper Ventures, Maven 11, Spartan, SevenX and OKX Ventures among others. With significant early backing, the blockchain startup is well capitalized to execute on its vision of providing a highly scalable environment purpose-built for supporting the burgeoning decentralized gaming, social and AI ecosystems.