Andre Cronje, the Chief Technology Officer of Sonic Labs (formerly Fantom), recently unveiled plans to introduce credit scores for digital wallets on the Sonic blockchain. In a blog post on September 9, Cronje explained that this move is aimed at tapping into the global unsecured lending market, which is estimated to exceed $11 trillion.
The integration of credit scores into blockchain technology is seen as a significant advancement by Cronje. He believes that it will open up opportunities for various traditional loan products, such as personal and payday loans, to enter the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Cronje highlighted that Sonic has successfully overcome several technological challenges to make credit scores a reality within blockchain systems.
The development of this credit scoring system began in 2021, with a focus on extracting, transforming, and loading transaction, loan, and trade data across multiple blockchains. Over 54 billion transactions were processed, covering nearly a petabyte of data and monitoring 500 million wallets, including 15 million loans. Sonic Labs has also developed a scoring model for blockchain addresses without the need for Know Your Customer (KYC) or personal data.
Cronje emphasized that Sonic will be the first blockchain to offer direct on-chain access to wallet scores, unlocking the massive $11 trillion market. This move is expected to revolutionize the way developers access and engage with the lending market on blockchain networks.
In addition to the credit score integration, Sonic Labs achieved a significant milestone on its testnet by achieving transaction finality in just 720 milliseconds. Cronje announced this achievement on September 8, highlighting the network’s responsiveness and true finality without the need for probabilistic confirmation.
This breakthrough positions Sonic as the fastest blockchain network in terms of transaction finality, surpassing competitors like Aptos, which has a 900ms finality according to Chainspect data.
Overall, the introduction of credit scores and the achievement of faster transaction finality solidify Sonic Labs’ position as a leading player in the blockchain space. The innovative advancements made by the team under Andre Cronje’s leadership are set to have a profound impact on the future of decentralized finance and blockchain technology.