Main cryptocurrency news for the morning of August 28

Sony Block Solutions Labs launches a testnet and a developer incubation program for the Soneium blockchain network, built on Optimism technology. Information about this has appeared on the project's resources.

Soneium is an L2 solution for Ethereum. The development is aimed at creating consumer applications with low costs. Sony partners such as Circle, Optimism, Alchemy, and others will participate in experimental work on the new network.

The project was created as part of a joint initiative by Sony Group Corporation and Startale Labs in 2023. The developers integrated the ASTR token as a key asset on the EVM-compatible Minato testnet.

Sony's subsidiaries, including Sony Music and Sony Pictures, will also participate in the Soneium Spark program, which offers up to $100,000 in startup capital for developers.

The TON network was halted for 3 hours against the backdrop of the launch of trading with the meme coin DOGS. Cryptocurrency community members noted the block production stoppage.

The last transaction was approved in block 45341899, after which new blocks ceased to appear. The network's operation was restored only after three hours. The cause of the failure is attributed to excessive activity in TON due to the launch of DOGS. In the first ten hours, the trading volume in pairs with the coin reached $1.7 billion.

PolitiFi tokens have grown by 667% since the beginning of the year, significantly outpacing other memecoins. According to CoinGecko, the market capitalization of politically oriented coins such as MAGA (TRUMP) and ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE) has reached $592.4 million, which is comparable to a sevenfold increase since the beginning of the year.

The growing interest in PolitiFi may have been influenced by the upcoming US presidential elections. Meanwhile, other meme coins, including Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, have only grown by 73% during the same period.