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Leadership update from Sonic Labs

Leadership update from Sonic Labs

There are real changes at Sonic, and you deserve to hear them straight. This covers our board, our leadership, where we honestly stand today, and what we are committing to from here.

Changes to the board

Michael Kong, Andre Cronje, and David Richardson are resigning from the Sonic Labs board.

These are the people who built what Sonic is today, and a single line in an announcement does not cover what they gave it. They remain supportive of Sonic as valued and active advisors, are committed to our success, and are handing off their responsibilities. From here, they will no longer make business decisions for the organization.

To Michael, Andre, and David: thank you. The foundation you laid is the reason everything below is even possible.

New leadership

Matt Visser steps in as Chief Executive Officer. Kosta Kourkoumelis joins as Chief Operating Officer.

Their first priority is not a roadmap reveal. It is operational discipline and earning back trust, in that order.

"I am not here to promise an instant turnaround. I am here to make Sonic 1% better every single day and let that compound. Show up, do the work, prove it in public, repeat."
Matt Visser, Chief Executive Officer

The hard truths

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.

So treat this as day one. The next 100 days are not a sprint to some finish line. The plan is simpler and harder than that: get 1% better every day and let it compound. Small gains, stacked daily, all pointed in the same direction. Hold that for 100 days and the Sonic you see at the end will not look like the one you see today.

Here is what changes.

What we are committing to

Transparent governance. Decisions, and the reasoning behind them, will be visible. No black boxes, no quiet rooms.

A real risk and compliance function. We are standing up a dedicated risk and compliance committee so the way we operate matches the standard our holders deserve.

Community first, with respect. The people holding $S are retail investors, not a vanity metric. We will treat them as stakeholders we answer to, not an audience we perform for.

Clear communication. Fewer announcements that say nothing. More plain updates on what we are doing, why, and what came of it.

What never stopped: the tech

While all of the above was in motion, the engineering team did not lose a single day.

In 2026 so far:

  • 400 meaningful pull requests merged into the main branch on GitHub
  • 2 official releases shipped
  • Major release 2.2.0 in active development, with 6 release candidates to date
  • A private testnet live and under intensive testing
  • Manual and automated pipelines running at full load

The technology has always been Sonic's strongest hand, and it never slowed down. That part of the company stayed consistent, and it has kept building straight through everything else.

We as a team

None of this is one person's work, and none of the credit is one person's either. We are saying this as a team, and we expect to be judged as one.

For disclosures, concerns, or anything you believe we should know, reach us directly at disclosure@soniclabs.com.

Additional Context

For clarity, Andre Cronje was not the Founder of Fantom Foundation. He joined after its formation, and in 2018 was publicly identified by Fantom as Technical Advisor. He subsequently served as a director and Chief Technology Officer of Sonic Labs, with responsibility for leading the technical design and development of the Sonic network, particularly Sonic Gateway. Following the June 2026 board transition and full handover of responsibilities, he will no longer be actively involved on a regular basis, but will serve as an invaluable technical advisor when called upon.

Likewise, Michael Kong and David Richardson will cede current responsibilities to the new management team, but remain as trusted advisors to Sonic. 

All 3 former directors remain as committed to the future success of Sonic as they have been, and will serve and support the new team if/as/when called upon.

Statements from departing board members

Two of our departing board members have shared their own reflections on this transition. You can read them here:

Update [June 23, 2026]: 

  1. We revised one line in the board section for clarity. The original wording said the departing members "remain invested in Sonic's success." Some readers reasonably read "invested" as a financial position, which was not the intended meaning. We have updated the wording to make clear it refers to their continued support for the project. The substance of the announcement is unchanged.
  2. We have also added a section at the end to provide additional context from two of the departing board members. 

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