Catenaa, Tuesday, February 17, 2026-Sonic Labs said it plans to build and acquire core blockchain applications to strengthen demand for its native S token, signaling a shift toward vertical integration to capture more onchain revenue.

Sonic, the Layer 1 blockchain formerly known as Fantom, said it will develop and potentially purchase products designed to increase S token utility across trading, credit, payments, settlement and risk markets.

The company said it intends to internalize key economic activities to prevent value leakage to third-party applications.

The network will remain open to developers, but Sonic Labs said it no longer wants to rely solely on gas fees as its primary value driver.

The team argued that advances in scaling technology have created a surplus of blockspace, compressing fees and weakening the traditional model where more transactions translate into higher token value.

Sonic is an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible chain that targets hundreds of thousands of transactions per second with near-instant confirmations.

Industry trackers rank it among the highest-throughput EVM networks.

The company said its vertical integration strategy will complement its existing monetization framework, FeeM, which allows app builders to retain up to 90% of generated fees while burning the remainder.

Additional revenue streams could support token buybacks funded by protocol income.

Sonic pointed to examples such as Hyperliquid, where application activity and infrastructure are tightly linked to token performance.

The shift comes as competition among Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks intensifies, pushing projects to seek new models for sustainable token value.