Sonic Labs introduced the top of its relationship with Wintermute. The platform is looking for a brand new market maker that may replicate the expansion of on-chain exercise and DeFi.
Sonic Labs, previously Fantom, introduced the top of its relationship with Wintermute. The platform will search a brand new market maker that may transcend centralized exchanges and replicate Sonic’s document on-chain exercise.
The announcement arrived after the value of the native S token slid from $0.61 right down to $0.53 on promoting strain. The Sonic Labs crew defined that the promoting occurred after Wintermute was knowledgeable that the five-year relationship with the venture would finish. One of many causes for Wintermute promoting was to cowl a liquidity mortgage from Sonic Labs.
24 hours in the past, we knowledgeable @wintermute_t that we’ll not be renewing our MM contract. We’ve been utilizing WM completely for five years of service.
We’ve engaged with different MM corporations who’re keen to supply MM++, they become involved in our DeFi ecosystem, have interaction with functions…
— assistant.sonic (@SonicAssistant) Could 15, 2025
The gross sales have been tracked to the wallets of Wintermute because the market maker divested 3M S, shifting holdings right down to 10M tokens. After the sale, Wintermute holds $5.9M of S based mostly on present costs.
The crew’s rationalization was met with some skepticism, as the precise phrases of the token mortgage have been unknown, in addition to the necessity for Wintermute to promote the token and crash the value.
The Sonic group speculated that the partnership was ended on dangerous phrases, resulting in the promoting strain. There are additionally strategies Wintermute may very well must re-buy S tokens to return the mortgage in variety. Wintermute has not given the rationale for depositing the tokens to exchanges.
The top of the Wintermute contract can also be anticipated to result in extra volatility for the native S token. The asset principally trades on Binance and Bybit, the place market makers usually increase volumes and assist generate demand for the asset.
Sonic grows a decentralized ecosystem
Sonic has grown its decentralized ecosystem and seeks market makers to assist groups, apps, and liquidity occasions. The chain not too long ago posted a document in its whole worth locked at over $1B, changing into one of many fastest-growing chains in 2025.
The Sonic ecosystem features a native model of Aave lending, the Shadow DEX, in addition to a model of the Pendle yield protocol. Sonic was principally equipped by the Ethereum ecosystem, with $2.3B in inflows and $555M in web inflows. Sonic stays related to the L1 ecosystem with fixed bridging and lively turnover. The chain additionally has small inflows from Base and Solana.
Sonic grew its whole worth locked above $1M and now seeks market makers able to working on DEX. | Supply: DeFi Llama
Prior to now months, Sonic additionally noticed continually increasing transactions, lively wallets, and charges. Nonetheless, Sonic nonetheless produces below $15K in each day charges, lagging behind extra established networks.
The chain carries greater than $484M in bridged USDC, supporting between $100M and $150M in each day DEX exercise. The Shadow change carries over $55M of the each day DEX exercise, buying and selling among the most outstanding tokens within the Sonic ecosystem.
The chain repeatedly carries over 50K each day lively customers, rivaling related networks. Sonic additionally retains a big social media group, aiming to construct an ecosystem much like Solana based mostly on low cost transactions and accessible liquidity.
