Somnia Founder Paul Thomas on Driving the Mainnet Launch That Could Redefine Blockchain Performance

August 23, 2025 at 13:59 PM EDT

New York City, USA - Somnia founder Paul Thomas recently outlined the inspiration behind Somnia and his vision for the future. By reaching over one million transactions per second, with sub-second finality and sub-cent fees, Somnia aims to eliminate the congestion and unpredictability that have held back large-scale onchain applications. Paul discusses Devnet and Testnet achievements, a growing ecosystem of 70+ partners, the project’s community-driven airdrop strategy, and how the network enables entirely new experiences such as gaming prediction markets and real-time applications.

Q: Paul, let’s start with your motivation. What problem were you trying to solve when founding Somnia?

A: From the beginning, it was obvious that fully onchain games and high-demand applications needed far more capacity than what blockchains could provide. Developers were being held back by high fees, congestion, and unreliable performance. We wanted to change that. Somnia was designed to handle millions of users, with transaction costs so low they’re practically invisible, and confirmation speeds under a second. The idea was to remove every barrier so creators could focus purely on building.

Q: Can you talk about the performance results from your testing phases?

A: In Devnet, we recorded peak speeds of 1.05 million TPS. To put that in perspective, the extra 0.05 alone equals 50,000 transactions per second, which already outpaces many blockchains. Our Testnet then ran for six months, processing more than 2 billion transactions in total, including a record-breaking day of 80 million.

Q: How about the ecosystem? Who’s part of it right now?

A: We’ve partnered with over 70 projects spanning gaming, DeFi, AI, and social apps. On the gaming side, titles like Sparkball, Variance, and Maelstrom are building with us. Infrastructure partners include Google Cloud, and we’ve added integrations with Sequence, DIA, Thirdweb, and Ankr, making it easy for developers to connect into the wider web3 stack.

Q: The community is buzzing about an airdrop. What’s the plan there?

A: There will be an airdrop, but we’re approaching it differently. Instead of a single event, it’s a long-term initiative with rolling incentive campaigns for builders, creators, and players. We’ve studied previous models closely and believe this ongoing structure will grow a stronger, more engaged community.

Q: Beyond raw performance, what kinds of new applications does Somnia make possible?

A: Prediction markets for games are one of the clearest examples. Somnia can handle all the live metadata from a match, like kills, assists, and other results. That means verifiable betting markets can form around not only who wins, but even specific in-game actions. For developers, this opens up a much-needed revenue stream. Take Sparkball, for instance: they see prediction markets as their primary business model, an alternative to relying solely on cosmetic sales. This concept could extend beyond esports into any interactive experience that benefits from the engagement model of sports betting.

Q: Once mainnet is live, what comes next?

A: The next stage is scaling the ecosystem and broadening validator participation for greater decentralization. We’ll keep running our Dream Catalyst accelerator and have introduced a new incubator program, Dreamathon, to support builders. At the same time, we’re expanding community incentives and grant programs. Our goal is to take the performance foundation we’ve built and see it drive the most innovative and ambitious projects in web3.

Closing Thoughts

Paul Thomas makes clear that Somnia’s mission is larger than hitting performance milestones. The project is setting out to redefine what’s possible for real-time, onchain applications by pairing technical breakthroughs with a developer- and community-first approach. Its mainnet debut is more than a launch—it’s the start of a broader shift in what blockchain platforms can deliver.

Contact: John Vibes

Company: Somnia Network

Email: pr@somnia.network

Website: https://somnia.network/

Location: New York City, USA

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Somnia Founder Paul Thomas on Driving the Mainnet Launch That Could Redefine Blockchain Performance

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