# Sophon Is Shuttering Its L2 and Doubling Down on Apps

*Author: Bankless*
*Published: Jun 25, 2026*
*Source: https://www.bankless.com/read/news/sophon-is-shuttering-its-l2-and-doubling-down-on-apps*

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Sophon, the consumer-focused Layer 2, announced today it's [decommissioning its chain](https://x.com/Sophon/status/2070192257295335800) and relaunching as Soph(+), a consumer product studio whose first project is a daily payments app called [Pyre](https://x.com/paywithpyre), built on Base. 

### **What's the Scoop?**
- **The pivot:** Sophon ran its own ZK-powered L2 built on zkSync's ZK Stack. After nine months of operation, the team concluded that maintaining the chain wasn't creating value that users couldn't already get elsewhere, and that their real opportunity was at the app layer.
- **Why Base:** Sophon will now be building on Base, citing the L2's trajectory toward mainstream onchain adoption, its lead in the agentic economy via x402, and existing working relationships between the two teams.
- **The first product:** Pyre is a daily payments app (spend, save, send) created around what Sophon is calling a new category, *entertainment finance*. Every transaction inside Pyre opens a "bill" that users can play or settle, turning payments into an engagement mechanic. For now, there's no release date set. 
- **SOPH token changes:** With the chain going away, SOPH's existing gas and staking utilities are being phased out. The replacement model is a buyback-and-burn program funded by real product revenues from Pyre and etc. Bought-back SOPH will be permanently burned rather than redistributed, meaning circulating supply contracts as the products scale. 
- **For existing holders:** Deposits to the Sophon chain are blocked from today, June 25th, but there's no hard decommission deadline. The chain is expected to stay live at least through the end of 2026.
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