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 trend festivals, Idol Runway Assortment (IRC).
The collaboration will carry the IRC onto Soneium’s AI-powered IPFi infrastructure to remodel world fan engagement by measurable, rewarding on-chain contributions. Asia’s leisure business has change into 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 trend hybrid competition, is hosted by YOAKE leisure and has expanded its scale by a collaboration with Tokyo Women 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 inventive group’s financial potential, beginning with the world’s second-largest music market.
The core of fan engagement is inside the IRC cellular app. This AI-powered app evaluates constructive, constant, supportive posts made by followers on platforms similar to X (previously Twitter). The measured engagement is transformed into “IRC Score,” which is robotically claimed to followers’ on-chain wallets with out fuel charges.
The primary wave of IRC 2026 performers, together with Nogizaka46, has been introduced by YOAKE Leisure. Supply: YOAKE Leisure
This collected 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 permits the on-chain Fan Vote, which immediately shapes tangible points of the IRC 2026 occasion. This measurable fandom contribution system will increase past idol tradition into new inventive frontiers similar to anime and trend.
Sony launched its Soneium blockchain mainnet on January 14, 2025, setting a brand new normal for production-grade Web3 companies 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 purposes for digital communities and artistic industries.
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Asian Leisure Firms Pioneer Fan Possession Fashions
This isn’t the primary time Asian leisure firms have tried Web3-related tasks. In Korea, lady 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 tune 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 similar to that of huge firms. Manufacturing exceeded 10 billion KRW ($6.8 million), and early NFT gross sales helped money movement, 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 enlargement by Tencent Music and Alibaba exhibits how direct messaging, authenticated merchandise, and built-in fan companies 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 facility of hybrid fan engagement. Merchandise, tiered subscriptions, and the enlargement of long-form audio present China constructing a multi-channel superfan economic 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 internet lack of 12.3 billion KRW within the final reported yr. Though HYBE artists’ digital collectibles sparked preliminary curiosity, Momentrica struggled because of a scarcity 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 supplied 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 obvious: 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 purposes. Its scalable Layer-2 community is constructed for voting, reward distribution, and group engagement. Whether or not leisure firms create efficient participation fashions on this infrastructure will decide if Sony’s blockchain technique succeeds the place others have failed.
