Soneium, a Layer-2 blockchain platform by Sony Block Options Labs, introduced a partnership with IRC APP, the official app for one in all Japan’s largest idol and vogue festivals, Idol Runway Assortment (IRC).
The collaboration will convey the IRC onto Soneium’s AI-powered IPFi infrastructure to rework world fan engagement via measurable, rewarding on-chain contributions. Asia’s leisure trade has grow to be a trailblazer in fan participation, a pattern that’s now taking maintain in Western markets.
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Sony’s Blockchain Infrastructure for Leisure
The IRC, Japan’s largest idol and vogue hybrid pageant, is hosted by YOAKE leisure and has expanded its scale via a collaboration with Tokyo Ladies Assortment (TGC). IRC has already established itself as a hit, attracting roughly 11,800 attendees and 107 idol teams to its 2025 occasion.
The core purpose of the partnership is redefining fan engagement by valuing and rewarding measurable on-chain contributions throughout the J-Pop fandom. This collaboration will unlock the artistic group’s financial potential, beginning with the world’s second-largest music market.
The core of fan engagement is inside the IRC cell app. This AI-powered app evaluates constructive, constant, supportive posts made by followers on platforms comparable to X (previously Twitter). The measured engagement is transformed into “IRC Rating,” which is routinely claimed to followers’ on-chain wallets with out gasoline charges.
This accrued rating determines a consumer’s Membership rank—Common, Bronze, Silver, or Gold—with every tier providing progressively enhanced real-world advantages for IRC 2026, scheduled for March 15, 2026, in Tokyo, together with early ticket entry, precedence entry, and premium venue invites. It additionally allows the on-chain Fan Vote, which immediately shapes tangible points of the IRC 2026 occasion. This measurable fandom contribution system will broaden past idol tradition into new artistic frontiers comparable to anime and vogue.
Sony launched its Soneium blockchain mainnet on January 14, 2025, setting a brand new customary for production-grade Web3 providers targeted on leisure, gaming, and mental property safety. This public Layer-2 community makes use of Ethereum’s OP Stack, inheriting its safety whereas providing decrease transaction charges and better throughput. Sony Block Options Labs designed Soneium to assist scalable functions for digital communities and inventive industries.
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Asian Leisure Corporations Pioneer Fan Possession Fashions
This isn’t the primary time Asian leisure corporations have tried Web3-related tasks. In Korea, woman group tripleS has made blockchain a core income. Produced by Modhaus and shaped as a 24-member group, tripleS lets followers use NFTs and utility tokens to affect unit composition and track choice. Followers buy NFT objects to realize Komos token voting energy within the COSMO app, making a system of clear, participatory governance.
This mannequin enabled tripleS to generate income even earlier than its debut, offering members with compensation corresponding to that of enormous corporations. Manufacturing exceeded 10 billion KRW ($6.8 million), and early NFT gross sales helped money circulate, providing a fairer distribution than typical idol group contracts. TripleS stands out as a case the place blockchain drives fan co-creation and clear worth sharing in leisure.
China’s leisure platforms are quickly adopting superfan-driven group fashions that resemble Web3 economics even with out blockchain. HYBE’s growth via Tencent Music and Alibaba exhibits how direct messaging, authenticated merchandise, and built-in fan providers strengthen ownership-like engagement. This atmosphere naturally helps large-scale Web3-style participation economies.
Tencent Music’s superfan ecosystem illustrates this shift with Bubble surpassing 2.3 million paying subscribers. G-DRAGON’s Macau exhibits drew 36,000 attendees and seven million simultaneous on-line viewers, proving the ability of hybrid fan engagement. Merchandise, tiered subscriptions, and the growth of long-form audio present China constructing a multi-channel superfan financial system aligned with Web3 rules.
Classes From Failed Web3 Leisure Experiments
Failures have existed, too. Momentrica, an NFT platform by Dunamu and HYBE, closed on July 2, 2025, after posting an working lack of 13 billion KRW ($8.88 million USD)and a web lack of 12.3 billion KRW within the final reported 12 months. Though HYBE artists’ digital collectibles sparked preliminary curiosity, Momentrica struggled attributable to an absence of long-term utility or sustained fan participation amid the broader NFT market downturn. Exactly, the platform solely provided NFTs as static digital items, not as engagement instruments.
The distinction between Momentrica and tripleS highlights a key distinction in Web3 leisure. Momentrica offered digital collectibles with out voting rights, participation, or ongoing utility. In distinction, tripleS used blockchain at its core, granting followers voting rights and engagement choices. The lesson is evident: profitable Web3 in leisure requires participation architectures, not simply digital merchandise.
Sony’s Soneium seems poised to keep away from Momentrica’s pitfalls by supporting high-volume, participation-based functions. Its scalable Layer-2 community is constructed for voting, reward distribution, and group engagement. Whether or not leisure corporations create efficient participation fashions on this infrastructure will decide if Sony’s blockchain technique succeeds the place others have failed.