The S token, native to the Sonic blockchain, slid about 5% on Friday after Sonic Labs announced the resignation of three long-standing board members.
S fell to 0.031 on Friday, down roughly 5% over 24 hours. The departing directors are Michael Kong, a former CEO of the Fantom Foundation and director at Sonic Labs; David Richardson, who served as executive chairman; and Andre Cronje, who had been the project’s chief technology officer.
Sonic Labs said the three founders and former executives “built what Sonic is today,” remain financially invested in the project, and are handing off their responsibilities in full. The organization added that the trio will no longer make business decisions for Sonic going forward.
As part of the leadership change, Sonic Labs named Matt Visser as CEO and Kosta Kourkoumelis as chief operating officer.
The shakeup comes amid growing community dissatisfaction and a prolonged slide in the S token’s price. Since the token’s January 2025 launch tied to a major network upgrade, S has fallen roughly 97% from its initial levels.
Sonic Labs, the research and development entity that succeeded the Fantom Foundation, said it will overhaul governance and communication. The organization pledged greater transparency, clearer project updates, and creation of a dedicated risk and compliance committee to address stakeholder concerns.
“We are not going to open with a victory lap. The token is down. Community sentiment is down. We see both clearly, we are not spinning it, and we are not asking anyone to pretend otherwise,” Sonic Labs said in its announcement.
The Sonic network—rebranded from Fantom—positions itself as an EVM-compatible layer-1 focused on high throughput, claiming up to 10,000 transactions per second and subsecond finality after replacing the legacy Fantom Opera network.
Observers noted the leadership changes occurred soon after a separate round of departures at the Ethereum Foundation, highlighting ongoing personnel shifts across major crypto projects.
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