SOON rollup unveils community airdrop after $22 million NFT raise and mainnet launch

The Solana Optimistic Network, an Ethereum Layer 2 powered by the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), confirmed its upcoming airdrop to community members and early supporters. Dubbed SOON, the token distribution is expected shortly and is now live on Binance Alpha, a launchpad for discovering new projects.

A blog post from January said airdrop recipients are entitled to 8% of SOON's total supply, or 80 million coins. This allocation also covers exchange liquidity, according to the previous announcement .  Also, SOON’s one billion total supply is shared across Community (51% or 510 million), Ecosystem (25% or 250 million), Team/Co-builders (10% or 100 million), and Foundation/Treasury (6% or 60 million). According to the team's official Medium page, the Community allocation will be distributed through a fair launch. The token doubles as both SOON's native ecosystem asset and governance coin.

The protocol’s SVM Ethereum L2 pivoted away from the typical scaling solution model. Unlike other Layer 2 networks like Base that use the Ethereum Virtual Machine Standard, SOON chose the Solana Virtual Machine to boost blockchain speeds. The project also separated its execution and settlement layer using a “decoupled SVM architecture.”

Joanna Zeng, SOON CEO and co-founder, said this roadmap initially caused internal friction. Executives within the project apparently disagreed over emphasizing security versus shipping community-focused products.

“This fundamental conflict could have fractured us… Through collective effort, we found an exceptional balance, Zeng wrote on Monday.

"Though the Decoupled SVM launched three months later than a Fork SVM would have, it provided high performance combined with robust security, revamped L2 derivation mechanisms, supported horizontal scaling, and integrated Firedancer.”

SOON raised $22 million during a “COMMing SOON” NFT mint to raise funds for its mainnet, launched earlier this year. Names like Hack VC, ABCDE, Hypersphere, and SNZ Capital participated in the sale. So far, the team has expanded its network beyond Ethereum to include Base and BNB Chain.