Sony’s Soneium Partners with IRC APP to Revolutionize Fan Engagement Through Blockchain
In a significant move bridging the entertainment industry with Web3 technology, Soneium, a Layer-2 blockchain platform developed by Sony Block Solutions Labs, has announced a strategic partnership with the Idol Runway Collection (IRC) APP. This collaboration aims to transform how fans interact with one of Japan’s premier idol and fashion festivals, creating a new paradigm for measurable on-chain contributions that reward audience engagement. As Asia continues to pioneer innovative approaches to fan participation, Western markets are beginning to take notice of these emerging models that blend entertainment with blockchain technology.
The partnership represents a bold step into the future of fandom, particularly in Japan’s robust entertainment ecosystem, where idol culture has long been a driving force in consumer behavior and engagement strategies. By leveraging Soneium’s AI-powered IPFi infrastructure, IRC APP intends to create a more immersive and rewarding experience for fans while establishing new economic opportunities within the world’s second-largest music market.
Sony’s Blockchain Infrastructure Transforms Entertainment Engagement
The Idol Runway Collection has established itself as Japan’s largest idol and fashion hybrid festival, drawing impressive crowds through its collaboration with Tokyo Girls Collection (TGC). Managed by YOAKE Entertainment, the 2025 IRC event attracted approximately 11,800 attendees and featured 107 idol groups, demonstrating the festival’s significant market position and growth trajectory.
At the heart of this new partnership is a revolutionary approach to fan engagement through the IRC mobile application. This AI-powered platform evaluates positive, supportive fan interactions across social media platforms including X (formerly Twitter), converting these contributions into an “IRC Score” that is automatically claimed to users’ on-chain wallets without gas fees. The accumulated score determines a user’s Membership rank—ranging from Regular to Gold—with each tier unlocking enhanced benefits for the upcoming IRC 2026 event scheduled for March 15, 2026, in Tokyo. These benefits include priority access to tickets, expedited venue entry, and invitations to exclusive premium events.
Perhaps most significantly, the system enables an on-chain Fan Vote feature that allows supporters to directly influence tangible aspects of the IRC 2026 event. This democratization of the creative process reflects a fundamental shift in how entertainment properties view their relationship with audiences—transforming passive consumers into active participants whose contributions can be measured, valued, and rewarded. The announcement of the first wave of IRC 2026 performers, including the popular group Nogizaka46, has already generated substantial interest in this new engagement model.
Sony launched the Soneium blockchain mainnet on January 14, 2025, positioning it as a production-grade Web3 service specifically designed for entertainment, gaming, and intellectual property protection. Built on Ethereum’s OP Stack, this public Layer-2 network inherits Ethereum’s robust security features while offering significantly lower transaction fees and higher throughput—critical factors for large-scale consumer applications in the entertainment space.
Asian Entertainment Companies Pioneer Innovative Fan Ownership Models
The Sony-IRC partnership represents the latest development in a broader trend across Asian entertainment companies embracing Web3 technologies. In South Korea, girl group tripleS has successfully integrated blockchain as a core revenue stream and engagement mechanism. Produced by Modhaus and conceived as a 24-member collective, tripleS has implemented a system where fans purchase NFT objects to gain Komos token voting power through the COSMO application, creating transparent, participatory governance of the group’s activities.
This innovative approach has allowed tripleS to generate substantial revenue even before their official debut, with production reportedly exceeding 10 billion KRW (approximately $6.8 million). The model has also facilitated a more equitable compensation structure for group members compared to traditional idol contracts. By enabling fans to influence unit composition and song selection through blockchain-verified voting, tripleS has pioneered a co-creation model that deeply involves their audience in the creative process.
China’s entertainment platforms have similarly embraced superfan-driven community models that mirror Web3 economics, even without explicit blockchain implementation. HYBE’s expansion through partnerships with Tencent Music and Alibaba demonstrates how direct messaging capabilities, authenticated merchandise, and integrated fan services can strengthen engagement that resembles ownership. Tencent Music’s superfan ecosystem has shown remarkable growth, with its Bubble service surpassing 2.3 million paying subscribers.
The successful Macau performances by K-pop icon G-DRAGON further illustrate the potential of hybrid engagement models, drawing 36,000 in-person attendees while simultaneously attracting 7 million online viewers. Through merchandise, tiered subscription services, and expanding long-form audio content, China has effectively constructed a multi-channel superfan economy that aligns with many Web3 principles of direct creator-audience relationships and value exchange.
Learning from Failed Web3 Entertainment Experiments
Despite these successes, the path toward blockchain integration in entertainment has not been without significant failures. Momentrica, an NFT platform developed through a partnership between Dunamu and entertainment powerhouse HYBE, closed its operations on July 2, 2025, after posting an operating loss of 13 billion KRW ($8.88 million USD) and a net loss of 12.3 billion KRW in its final reported fiscal year. Although digital collectibles featuring HYBE artists generated initial enthusiasm, Momentrica struggled to maintain momentum due to limited long-term utility and insufficient fan participation mechanisms amid a broader downturn in the NFT market.
The stark contrast between Momentrica’s failure and tripleS’s success highlights a crucial distinction in Web3 entertainment strategies. Momentrica primarily offered static digital collectibles without meaningful voting rights, ongoing participation opportunities, or evolving utility. Conversely, tripleS integrated blockchain technology as a fundamental component of its business model, providing fans with genuine governance input and continuous engagement opportunities that extended beyond simple digital ownership.
This divergence offers valuable insights for Sony’s Soneium initiative. The platform appears strategically positioned to avoid Momentrica’s shortcomings by supporting high-volume, participation-focused applications through its scalable Layer-2 network architecture. Designed specifically for voting mechanisms, reward distribution systems, and community engagement features, Soneium provides the technological foundation for meaningful fan participation rather than merely facilitating digital collectible transactions.
The Future of Blockchain-Powered Entertainment Ecosystems
As Sony’s Soneium platform embarks on this partnership with IRC APP, the initiative stands at the intersection of several powerful trends reshaping the global entertainment landscape. By focusing on measurable on-chain contributions rather than speculative digital assets, the collaboration addresses a fundamental challenge that has hindered previous Web3 entertainment ventures—creating sustainable value through participation rather than through artificial scarcity alone.
The IRC partnership represents a significant test case for Sony’s broader blockchain strategy, potentially establishing a template for how major entertainment conglomerates can meaningfully integrate decentralized technologies into their consumer offerings. By starting with Japan’s vibrant idol culture—an ecosystem already characterized by intense fan engagement and participation—Sony has chosen fertile ground for demonstrating blockchain’s potential to enhance rather than disrupt existing entertainment models.
For Western entertainment companies observing these developments, the lessons are becoming increasingly clear. Successful blockchain integration in entertainment requires thoughtful participation architectures that genuinely empower fans while creating sustainable economic models for creators and platforms alike. As traditional barriers between creators and audiences continue to erode, the ability to measure, reward, and amplify fan contributions may ultimately determine which entertainment properties thrive in an increasingly interactive digital landscape.
The Sony-IRC partnership thus represents not merely a technological experiment but a potential paradigm shift in how entertainment value is created, distributed, and captured across global markets. Whether Soneium can avoid the pitfalls that have claimed previous Web3 entertainment initiatives will depend largely on how effectively entertainment companies build engaging participation models on this infrastructure—a challenge that extends well beyond technical capabilities into the fundamental nature of creator-audience relationships in the digital age.
