Sonic in Five Minutes: A Different Fuel, a Faster Chain

Sonic is the third shore of our city, and the lightest one on purpose. It holds 4 of the 33 Genesis quests and 90 of the season's 1,800 points: a short first visit, not a second campaign.

That makes it the quickest network to explain. Here is what you need to know before you go, in roughly five minutes of reading.

The one thing that's different: the fuel#

On Base and Soneium you pay for every transaction in ETH. Sonic runs on its own token, called S.

That sounds like a detail until it bites. A wallet that arrives on Sonic with ETH or dollars but no S can't send anything at all, not even move those dollars back out. So the first thing to bring to this shore is a little S.

How little? A tenth of one S covers about a dozen actions here. The Sonic gateway hands you S when you bridge in, and exchanges that support withdrawals to the Sonic network can send it straight to your address.

Three more facts, for your wallet:

• Chain ID 146, the number your wallet knows Sonic by.
• The dollars are USDC issued by Circle, not a bridged copy. On Soneium the dollars carry an .e, here they don't.
• The same address as everywhere else, with its own balances. Nothing you hold on Base or Soneium appears on Sonic until you bring it over.

Why "faster"#

Sonic is built for speed: a transaction is confirmed in about a second, and fees are fractions of a cent. For a player that mostly means you press, and it's done. For how Sonic, Base and Soneium relate to each other, see what an L2 is.

The four Sonic quests#

Every Sonic quest asks what your wallet holds, never for a swap. That changes one habit from the other shores: the block you pressed Start at doesn't matter here, because the check reads your balance when you press Verify. An old balance counts too. Only your main wallet is read.

1. Third Shore, 10 points. Hold 0.1 S on Sonic. This is the fuel itself, and it's the quest that makes every other one possible.
2. Fast Lane, 10 points. Hold 0.10 USDC or more. Bridge it over the gateway, or swap a little S for it on Shadow.
3. Turbine Share, 10 points. Hold 1 stS or more. You get stS by staking S: the stake stays in your wallet as a token, still liquid, and one costs a couple of cents. It's the only place in the season where what you stake is the fuel of the network itself. Keep some plain S aside: stake all of it and you can't pay for the next move.
4. Shadow Berth, 60 points. Hold a liquidity position on Shadow, Sonic's exchange. Any pair, any size: a position of a few cents closes it just like a large one. Classic pools and concentrated liquidity both count.

Three small balances and one position: that's the whole shore.

A short order that works#

Nothing on the map is locked and any order works. This is the one our team would walk:

1. Third Shore first. Get a little S onto Sonic. Without it nothing below can happen.
2. Turbine Share next. Stake a small part of your S, keep the rest for fees.
3. Fast Lane. Bridge ten cents of USDC, or swap for it on Shadow.
4. Shadow Berth last. It's the only quest here that puts your money to work in a pool, and it deserves a minute of reading first.

What it costs, honestly#

The three holding quests spend almost nothing: the S, the stS and the USDC stay in your name. You pay gas in fractions of a cent, and staking costs only the stake itself.

Shadow Berth is the one to size for yourself. While your money sits in a pool, its two sides are traded against each other. If the pair moves apart, withdrawing gives you a different mix than you put in, sometimes worth less than simply holding. The trading fees you earn work the other way. Start small: this is a place to learn the mechanic.

The amounts in this guide are quest minimums, not a suggestion of what to buy or hold.

One thing Sonic quests don't do#

A Sonic quest is never the verified transaction that a Genesis payout asks for, because these quests read balances rather than trades. A swap quest on Base or Soneium is. So is a counted Denshin Sync, including one sent on Sonic. The rule itself is on the fair play page.

That Sync is one more reason to keep a little S on Sonic: a daily sync here costs a fraction of a cent, sends no value and asks for no approval.

Try it#

What each Sonic check reads is on the Sonic page of our docs. Then open app.denshin.io, find Third Shore among the Sonic quests and press Start. Genesis runs until 31 October, and Sonic is the shore you can finish in one evening.