Sonic founder Chris interview: Turning the tide, seeking the real storm beneath the surface of Web3

Author: Ru7, Donny, Web3 Growth Scientist

In his 26 years of life, he has crossed multiple fields. He calls himself an "explorer," always seeking the true storm beneath the calm surface. He is better known for leading the project Sonic, which, along with his team, secured $16 million in funding. He is Chris Zhu, the founder and CEO of Mirror World. Sonic, under Mirror World, is the first atomic interoperability SVM Layer 2 project in the Solana ecosystem, and it continues to lead technological innovation, aiming to achieve a sovereign game economy ultimately settled on Solana. Today, let's talk about Chris's story— from initial exploration to current achievements, and understand how this young founder is carving new paths in the ever-changing Web3 domain. Chris Zhu

Entering the Circle: A "Turning Point"

Before entering Web3, Chris was passionate about culture and fashion. During his student years, he interned at many top fashion companies, laying the first cornerstone for his future career. After returning to China, he worked for a while at Bilibili, Deloitte, and a dollar venture capital firm. However, it was his experience at ByteDance that truly made Chris reevaluate his career path. After joining the strategic investment team at ByteDance, he quickly realized that he lacked passion for projects that were repeatedly packaged and redefined. Many things seemed trendy, but in essence, they were just a rehash of past theories. He admitted that those technologies that were originally exciting could actually be summarized as "known repetitions." He gradually became aware that what he truly desired was a boundless exploration, rather than wandering around relying on path dependence. This reflection prompted him to turn his attention to Web3 and AI. In 2021, he joined rct AI, a company exploring the combination of AI and blockchain. That year, amid the NFT craze, he led his team to create a unique NFT series—Mirror World, generating $1.3 million in revenue in just 45 days, and later, Mirror World became the name of their company. The success of the NFT project inspired him to explore broader possibilities, and he began to think about how to use blockchain technology to create a truly interconnected world. This thinking led him to the Solana chain, where he chose to further expand the ecological landscape of Mirror World. Initially, they had many directions, including Polygon, StarkWare, and Arbitrum, but ultimately he chose Solana, because in his view, Solana is not only a public chain with excellent technical performance but also a digital city-state capable of supporting the explosive growth of large-scale financial applications. In early 2022, Chris's team decided to seek seed round financing for the project. With the impressive performance of their early product and the foresight of the team, they quickly attracted the attention of capital, and several well-known investment institutions extended olive branches to them. Subsequently, in the Pre-A round of financing, Chris and the team successfully raised $4 million, injecting important momentum into the project's development.

The Company Almost Collapsed

What was initially thought to be a good start, but that year, the FTX collapse had a chain reaction effect on them. "At that time, we had raised about $4 million, of which about $1.2 million was stored in FTX, along with some funds paid to partners. We did not anticipate that FTX's collapse would trigger the subsequent chain reaction." By the second half of 2022, the Mirror World team had rapidly expanded to 29 people, and the sudden collapse of FTX caught the team off guard, making it impossible to withdraw funds. That night, the team held an emergency meeting and had to lay off half of the staff, reducing the team size to about 13 or 14 people. After the FTX incident, the number of Mirror World’s clients plummeted. In the past, their clients were mainly game projects on Solana, helping them issue assets, but the impact of FTX brought the team to an unprecedented low. Operating in this industry became increasingly difficult without external energy injection, and the pressure of entropy nearly suffocated the Mirror World team. "By early 2024, our operating funds were almost depleted, with less than two months of survival time left. At this point, our options included seeking team mergers or sales, but negotiations did not go smoothly. We ultimately decided to fully invest in the development of Sonic." Chris Zhu

Team: Challenges and Breakthroughs in Leveraging Eastern and Western Cultures on Solana

Finally, in March 2024, Mirror World announced the launch of the game public chain Sonic based on SVM HyperGrid on Solana. Mirror World stated that Sonic is the first Gaming Chain on Solana, proposing the first scalability architecture HyperGrid, which can help game developers efficiently handle and manage game states, logic, and events. In this conversation, Chris shared the team's development journey on Solana, the complex situations they faced, and how he views the collaborative relationships among team members. "Building a game chain on Solana, we saw the opportunity to bring users and diversity to the ecosystem. Although certain types of blockchain games have been market-validated as failures, games centered around users and traffic can still bring new user growth and drive industry development," he explained. The team insisted on moving against the wind in the Web3 gaming track, and seeing fewer and fewer peers survive became the motivation for Chris's team to continue moving forward. With the acceptance of retail investors towards RON and IMX in the Ethereum ecosystem, Sonic's popularity surged, gradually making them one of the fastest-growing teams in the Solana ecosystem. Sonic official website https://www.sonic.game/ Chris believes that the team's diverse background also adds significant value to the project, as the team possesses deep Asian resources and international vision. Whether it is the market leader with American roots but born in Korea or the CTO who grew up in Uganda, they excel in cross-regional resource integration. Ultimately, this diverse background, combined with the team members' profound understanding of the blockchain ecosystem and firm belief, has contributed to the current trajectory of project development. When discussing the core team's division of labor, Chris used this metaphor. "My role is like a net that can capture various information and connections in the industry. I am responsible for breadth, ensuring we understand every important direction." He then added: "For example, our product partner Jialin is like a sword. When I capture enough information, Jialin can help us quickly find breakthroughs and focus on a clear solution. When we collaborate, I first spread out, capturing valuable information, then quickly reel it in, and Jialin breaks through with the 'sword'." Another core team member, Jonathan, is described by Chris as a "guardian." "He is like a wall, solid and resilient. Jonathan is Ugandan, studied in the US and China, and has not returned home for four to five years during the pandemic, persisting alone in Beijing." Chris described. Jonathan is responsible for tackling the most challenging technical issues, serving as the pillar of the team and a steadfast force protecting the team as they move forward. Team member introduction, image from: *Rootdata Chris revealed that they experienced a life-and-death test in March this year. Every morning he would ask himself: *"Should I give up?"* But the answer was always negative because he didn't want to lose yet. So, Chris and the team decided to face the difficulties head-on and sought to find a new round of financing. However, this path was not smooth; they were constantly rejected, and almost every meeting left them anxious and uneasy.

Later, they met Mr. Cao Darong from Sky9 Capital (former general manager of Lightspeed Venture Partners), who not only became the main supporter of this round of financing but also brought more quality investors to the team. The injection of this capital relieved the team, not only recognizing their early efforts but also making an important bet on future development. On June 18, 2024, Sonic announced the completion of a $12 million Series A financing, with Bitkraft Ventures participating as the lead investor, and OKX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Sanctor Capital, Sky9 Capital, Matt Sorg, and others participating in the follow-up investment, bringing the valuation of this round of financing to $100 million. In this round of financing, Galaxy Interactive, after investing in the previous round, participated again, and as one of the largest compliant service providers in the Solana ecosystem, Galaxy Interactive also acted as an important intermediary for FTX OTC. This support provided the team with stronger market endorsement. The participating parties also included several important angel investors within the Solana ecosystem, further highlighting their trust and recognition of Sonic. Image from: *Rootdata The completion of this round of financing marks a new stage in Sonic's growth and gives Chris and his team more confidence in future development. Chris stated that the team will use this funding to further improve Sonic's technical architecture and accelerate its application expansion in the Web3 and Solana ecosystems. At the same time, Chris emphasized Sonic's goal— to become an important part of promoting the development of SVM Layer 2, achieving blockchain interoperability, and empowering more developers and users. Chris mentioned that their team is opening up new paths, *such as using TikTok as a traffic base, guiding more users into the world of cryptocurrency through this innovative approach.* Not for success but for "exploration" On the entrepreneurial road, everyone encounters some key figures whose influence often changes our life trajectory invisibly. For this young entrepreneur, the two special individuals who first introduced him to the blockchain industry were pivotal. The first was his roommate from his freshman year, a very creative friend. This friend made a bold move in mid-2021—he purchased a piece of art by street artist Banksy and personally burned it, then transformed this act into an NFT for marketing. This was not only a collision of art and technology but also introduced him to the world of blockchain. The second influential figure was another close friend, one of the founders of Injective Protocol. The success of Injective Protocol made him see the enormous potential of the blockchain industry and ignited his motivation to explore and participate in this field. Looking back at his student days, he mined with friends in the dormitory, and the overheating power supply raised the temperature of the entire room, and this seemingly casual experience laid the groundwork for his later entrepreneurial path. Now, as a young entrepreneur, his work pace can be described as "busy." He recalled, "In the past two years, I have hardly stayed in one place for more than three or four weeks. Whether domestically or abroad, I have spent almost all my time attending meetings, networking, and business trips." This busy lifestyle, while allowing him to accumulate a lot in business, also made him realize that such hustle is not just a drain on physical strength and energy, but also an invisible challenge to time and quality of life. Therefore, in the next stage, he wants to maintain clarity and focus. At 26, standing at the wave of Web3, maintaining clarity and focus Looking ahead, he is full of confidence in the development of the company and the industry. "We are at a very important turning point now, and in the next 3 to 5 years, we hope to compete with the world's top projects and achieve truly world-class accomplishments that belong to us." He has very clear goals for the future, especially in the fields of scalability solutions and Layer 2, hoping to promote more efficient and innovative technological solutions. He is not afraid of future competition; on the contrary, he values how to gain market share through product user experience and innovative business models. "Our current advantage lies in our deep cultivation of the Solana ecosystem, and there is still a blank space in the Layer 2 field without leading projects, which provides us with enormous development space." "My father is not particularly supportive of my entrepreneurial path, especially after I left the financial industry and big companies; his attitude has always put a lot of pressure on me. For him, traditional industries are stable and reliable, while entrepreneurship is full of uncertainties and may even lead to failure." But in this conflicting emotion, Chris gradually understood that his father's concerns were not without reason. After all, his worldview and the innovative spirit he pursues are different. He represents solid tradition, while I yearn to break through these fixed mindsets to create a whole new world. Although I understand him, this contradiction and struggle have made me more determined to break through my own limitations.

Chris understands that in this noisy industry, maintaining clarity and focus is crucial. In the rapidly developing cryptocurrency industry, besides innovation and passion, calm judgment and clear strategy are also key to success.

"Today’s cryptocurrency industry sees the coexistence of value in assets, payments, and transactions, and in the future, we will see that behind any industry, huge value can be brought through financialization. This requires us to continuously innovate while also being clear about the problems we want to solve, rather than merely pursuing the short-term heat of the market."

Standing at the forefront of Web3, Chris deeply understands that the road of innovation is not easy, with many difficulties and challenges ahead, but he firmly believes that only by maintaining clarity, focus, and innovation can one find their own direction amidst the turbulent waves of the industry.