The developers of the Soneium blockchain (Sony's Layer 2) have caused controversy due to the alleged ban on some memecoin for violating intellectual property rights. This action occurred on the day of the network's launch, leading to the restriction of some tokens, making them unsupported, untradable, or non-transferable on the network.
This has caused disappointment among some users, as evidenced by many posts on X, showing that they suddenly could not trade or access these memecoin on the Soneium network and the block explorer.
This ban targets tokens that mimic or use trademarks protected by Sony or Soneium, and their operations have been restricted on the network. As a result, trading these memecoin has been affected. Users attempting to access these tokens receive a ban warning on the official Soneium block explorer.
Tensions escalated with comments from the anonymous founder of pump.fun, Alon, who criticized the platform for actively banning memecoin that Sony dislikes, instantly wiping out users' positions.
Sony's new Ethereum L2 is actively blacklisting memecoins they don't like, instantly nuking everyone's position to 0
— alon (@a1lon9) January 14, 2025
what makes you think that other centralized L2s won't do the same if push comes to shove?
don't take your freedoms for granted
Others have questioned the level of control blockchain developers should exert and the balance between protecting intellectual property and maintaining a permissionless network.
Furthermore, the founder of Time.fun, Kawz, said the ban has affected users' funds. The blacklisted tokens have been restricted at the RPC level, making them temporarily inaccessible. "Soneium rugged users >$100k in ETH on launch day. I've never seen anything like it," Kawz commented. He said at least two tokens have been banned so far.
.@soneium rugged users >$100k in ETH on launch day
— Kawz (@0xKawz) January 14, 2025
I've never seen anything like it
Want to be a permissioned chain? fine. Instead of whitelisting developers, they chose to instead freeze contracts (effectively rugging users)
Amazing launch! pic.twitter.com/OYWEb7Wiwg
One of such projects is the newly launched memecoin called "Aibo," named after Sony's line of robot dogs, with a value of around $700,000, according to DexScreener.
The developers said they are working with Soneium to resolve the issue quickly and may introduce a new logo.
Sony Block Solutions Labs, the multinational conglomerate Sony's blockchain subsidiary based in Singapore, launched Soneium this morning.
In its announcement, the Soneium developers emphasized the enforcement of intellectual property rights for creators and fans.
"Our documentation clearly outlines how we protect intellectual property and combat bad actors - while still upholding the core web3 values of openness and innovation," Soneium said in response to this controversy.
Compiled by VIC Crypto
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