Sonic Labs has cancelled every manual mint of its S token and commissioned an independent audit of the token’s supply, chief executive Matt Visser said, in the most direct move yet by the network’s new leadership to address how many tokens exist and how that number has been reported.
The only new S that will be created from now on is the automated emission that pays the validators who secure the network. Everything else stops. The audit, conducted by a third party Sonic has not named, covers both the token supply and “related reporting,” and Visser said the company will publish its findings when the work is complete.
Visser set out the changes in a letter titled “Day 100 – Where We Are, And Where We’re Headed,” published on Sonic’s official X account. “No new mints. Period,” he wrote. He said the final audit report is expected within the next few weeks, after which Sonic will “openly discuss what needs to be done going forward.”
One Mint Left
The letter draws a line between two kinds of supply creation. Manual mints, issued by decision rather than by protocol, are being cancelled outright. The automated emissions mint continues because it funds validator rewards, and Visser said stopping it is not possible without an alternative that Sonic does not yet have.
“We’re working on this and it’s a personal mission of mine,” he wrote. Sonic said it is finalizing new independent validator operators and reviewing how validator rewards could be made more dynamic, with updates to follow.
Visser framed the change as a shift from promises to mechanics. “What’s changed since last time is that the ability to expand supply is being removed rather than just promised against,” he wrote.
The letter does not state the current rate of automated emissions, the total S supply, or how many tokens the cancelled manual mints would have created.
The Audit
The audit is the letter’s most open-ended commitment. Sonic said it has commissioned an independent third-party review of the S token supply and related reporting and that the work is under way now.
The letter does not name the auditor, define the period under review, or say what prompted the engagement. It commits to publishing the findings and discussing next steps once the report is complete.
How Sonic Got Here
Visser took over at a low point. On June 20, 2026, Sonic Labs announced that its three founding board members, Andre Cronje, Michael Kong, and David Richardson, were resigning and named Visser chief executive and Kosta Kourkoumelis chief operating officer.
The company did not frame the change as a recovery. Its announcement acknowledged that the token was down and community sentiment was down and said it would not spin the position. S had reached an all-time high of $1 in January 2025, according to CoinGecko, and by June $0.02.
Visser said then that he was “not here to promise an instant turnaround” and that his priority was “operational discipline and earning back trust, in that order.”
In the Day 100 letter, he said the handover is now complete, taking “much longer than we wanted,” and that the business has “clear lines of accountability for the first time since I got here.”
No Buybacks Without Revenue
Visser used the letter to restate his position on token economics, which he said has not changed since his Day 50 update. Buybacks, burns, and fee-sharing are easy to design and announce, he wrote, but “without revenue behind them, they’re transfers out of the treasury dressed up as value accrual.”
His sequence is “ship products, generate revenue, then route it.” The letter does not commit to any buyback, burn, or fee-sharing mechanism, nor does it say when revenue might be routed to S holders.
A Separate Business Built Around the Chain
The supply changes sit inside a broader restructuring. Sonic will continue to operate as a Layer 1 blockchain, while a separate technology business will build and commercialize products around it. Visser said heads of department will be named once confirmed.
That business plans to license two pieces of Sonic’s core software, SonicVM, the virtual machine that executes smart contracts, and SonicDB, its database storage engine, to companies with no interest in Sonic as a chain. Visser said Sonic has had “serious conversations” with such counterparties, describing licensing as revenue that “does not depend on crypto adoption cycles.”
The letter names four commercial areas. In payments and foreign exchange, Sonic said it works with Frax, whose frxUSD stablecoin it white-labels as USSD, with Circle for native USDC, and with Spendl for on-ramping and Mastercard spending functionality. In AI, it described a built-in server for connecting AI agents to the network and a native transaction-prioritization system called Priority Lanes, both under internal testing.
It listed tokenization of real-world assets, including a product called Nummo, and infrastructure for prediction markets, which it said it will license to operators rather than run itself. Sonic is no longer pursuing perpetual futures on its own, the letter said.
Separately, Sonic said its V2.2 network upgrade goes live on September 22, adding bundled transactions, expanded transaction sponsorship, larger smart contract limits, and a new execution engine.
A Regulator Joins
Sonic is also adding senior hires in finance, compliance, and regional business development. The most prominent is Brandon Topham, who will lead finance and compliance. He previously spent three years as divisional executive for investigations and enforcement at South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority, according to the letter.
Visser tied the hire directly to the new business lines. “Every serious counterparty in payments, brokerage, and tokenized assets wants to know who owns compliance before they’ll talk about anything else,” he wrote.
Melvin Tan, currently at Signum Capital, will lead business development across Asia-Pacific, and Charles Elliman will join as a growth consultant for Africa.
Memecoins Stay Off the Table
The letter also addressed memecoins. Visser said Sonic will not endorse tokens, provide liquidity for them, or pick favorites among them. He drew a distinction with what he called culture coins, tokens with “anything underneath,” and said Sonic will convene builders in that space to define what support should look like, starting from infrastructure, tooling, and neutrality rather than liquidity or endorsements.
Visser said he will attend Korea Blockchain Week and Token2049 in Singapore in early October. The audit report is expected before or around then.
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