Improbable, a trailblazing gaming technology startup, recently unveiled its ambition to blaze a new trail in the blockchain sector with the development of its proprietary Layer 1 blockchain named Somnia—a marvel of engineering that is expected to process a staggering 400,000+ transactions per second.
As part of the announcement, Somnia is expected to make its devnet debut in the forthcoming weeks. Improbable’s founder and CEO, Herman Narula, highlighted that they have effectively mitigated the enduring issue of blockchain scalability through Somnia. The team harnessed its extensive experience with gaming and distributed systems to create Somnia, targeting mass consumer applications such as gaming, social platforms, and decentralized finance (DeFi).
A glance at Improbable’s history shows over ten years of proficiency in distributed systems, a fact which they are harnessing to build what may become the fastest blockchain for mass consumer applications.
Somnia is designed to be an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible blockchain. The technology underpinning it is ICEdb, Improbable’s breakthrough invention, which reportedly permits ultra-fast read/write times, and advanced compression algorithms— a feature that allows data transfer at speeds purportedly 10-20 times more efficient than other blockchains.
Initial testing of Somnia’s prowess, done with 100 validators, processed hundreds of thousands of EVM transactions per second using non-sharded data. This high processing power hinges on leveraging innovative compression strategies and a custom data ingestion layer, which is said to significantly reduce the bandwidth requirement for transaction data.
Improbable is taking charge of developing key technical components of the Somnia blockchain. This trailblazing project is a brainchild of the Virtual Society Foundation—an independent entity initiated and initially funded by Improbable, together with metaverse consortium MSquared, which was launched by Improbable in April 2023.
Paul Thomas, the founder of the Virtual Society Foundation, stated that Somnia’s unprecedented blockchain capabilities are marking the starting point for real-time, mass-consumer applications.
Supplementary to Improbable’s focusing on the metaverse, Somnia’s mission statement zeroes in on creating “a network of rich experiences, valuable virtual objects, and sufficiently decentralised to let people build real companies without dependence on one big gaming business.”
Initially, Somnia will redirect its power towards the development of gaming, metaverse, and social experiences, but its creators also anticipate a wide array of applications in the future. They stated, “We
