Cardano vs Sonic

Cardano uses the Ouroboros Proof‑of‑Stake protocol and an Extended‑UTxO ledger that enables deterministic smart contracts in Plutus and Aiken. Its ‘Basho’ scaling era introduced Hydra Head sidechains capable of 1000 TPS per head, and Mithril light‑client proofs for mobile wallets. Over 1 500 stake pools secure the network and participate in on‑chain treasury governance.

Sonic is an ultra‑fast EVM Layer‑1 claimed to reach 400k TPS and sub‑second finality via a custom SonicVM and DAG‑based consensus dubbed Tempo. Blocks are final once two‑thirds of stake attest, and state is stored in an in‑memory ledger that snapshots to disk every epoch. The project focuses on GameFi and real‑time social dApps, with an incentive testnet launched in May 2025.