Sonic Blockchain, formerly known as Fantom, plans to offer credit scores for digital wallets, according to a blog post by Andre Cronje, the CTO of Sonic Labs. 

The initiative aims at tapping into the $11 trillion global unsecured lending market by enabling decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms to offer traditional loan products like personal and payday loans.

Cronje highlighted that the integration of credit scores is a key advancement in blockchain technology. He explained that the credit scoring system will allow decentralized applications (dApps) to access credit score data without requiring Know Your Customer (KYC) verification or personal data. "Credit scores are simple in design," 

Cronje stated:

"They extract, transform, and analyze financial data to provide a detailed summary in the form of a credit score."

Building the Framework

Sonic Labs began developing this credit scoring system in 2021. The system processes data from over 500 million wallets, 15 million loans, and 54 billion transactions. This data processing effort spans multiple blockchains and results in a scoring model for blockchain addresses.

The development eliminates the need for KYC, allowing users to maintain privacy. Sonic will reportedly be the first blockchain to offer on-chain access to wallet scores, enabling developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) for credit-based financial products.

A New Era of Financial Products

Sonic's introduction of credit scores reportedly pens up DeFi to a variety of traditional loan products. Some of the key financial products that could become accessible through this system include:

• Personal loans

• Payday loans

• Credit-based insurance

• Adjustable-rate mortgages

• Buy Now, Pay Later services

• Postpaid mobile plans

According to Cronje, Sonic opens up the door to users who previously could not access such financial services as a result of decentralized blockchain and lack of traditional credit scores.

Technological Innovations Driving Sonic’s Success

One of the standout features of Sonic’s blockchain is its fast transaction finality. On September 8, Cronje revealed that Sonic’s testnet achieved transaction finality in just 720 milliseconds, significantly faster than competitors like Solana, which has a 12.8-second transaction finality.

In his analysis, Cronje said that the rapid finality of the system, combined with the very low latency (700 milliseconds), gas subsidies, and native account abstraction, creates an ecosystem that is both efficient and user-friendly. This means users no longer need gas funds in their wallets, a common barrier to blockchain adoption, and private keys can be replaced with standard authentication methods.

The Road Ahead for Sonic

The Sonic testnet went live on September 6, and the mainnet launch is expected to follow soon. 

Eventually, Cronje believes Sonic will become the fastest blockchain when it comes to transaction finality, further cementing its position in the competitive blockchain field.

Sonic Labs integrates credit scores and taps into the trillion-dollar unsecured lending market with a focus on speed, scalability, and privacy. The native token FTM, rose 11.3% over the last 24 hours, and is trading at $0.4914, at the time of writing.