Sony’s Soneium is turning K-pop into an investable asset class. The Ethereum layer-2 network developed by Sony Group and Startale Group has signed a partnership with DayOneDream, the Korean entertainment company behind artists such as BTOB, LEE CHAE YEON, MEMI and 2F, to bring K-pop intellectual property and its related revenue streams onchain through the WAVIST platform.
The deal was announced on Sept. 29 during Korea Blockchain Week in Seoul, and it arrives with something most tokenization announcements lack: a completed track record. WAVIST says it issued a tokenized K-pop IP bond in May and carried the product through its entire onchain life cycle, from issuance to final redemption to the burning of the redeemed tokens. Issuance put the bond into circulation, redemption completed the repayment process, and burning removed the tokens from supply. The companies cited that full sequence as evidence that WAVIST can manage an entertainment financing product from start to finish.
The May bond, however, was not accompanied by full disclosure. The announcement did not identify the bond’s issuer, its size, its interest terms, or the underlying catalog attached to it. The partners also stopped short of naming a first asset for the Soneium partnership. The May transaction is a completed WAVIST deal; the new work with Soneium concerns future K-content assets and revenue streams.
## What DayOneDream brings to the table
DayOneDream’s role goes well beyond supplying an artist name. According to its company description, the firm works across music production and publishing, video, artist management, concerts, and IP commerce. That breadth matters for structuring, because it gives the company several distinct types of rights and income streams to work with when designing a financial product, even though the partners have not specified which will be used first.
Dylan Cho, DayOneDream’s RWA lead, framed the partnership as a way to connect capital more directly to the intellectual property that actually generates entertainment revenue. K-pop is a market unlike any other, Cho said, yet the way capital reaches it has barely changed. The companies see a path to investing through the IP itself, rather than through indirect corporate exposure.
For rights holders, the appeal is straightforward: tokenization offers another route to raise funds and earn revenue from their work. For eligible users, the proposed assets would offer a way to participate in the financial value tied to entertainment IP. The announcement is explicit that access to any future assets will depend on applicable rules and user eligibility.
## Soneium’s entertainment DNA
Soneium was built for exactly this kind of use case. The network already centers on creators, digital content, and applications, with earlier entertainment projects including digital collectibles and game-related assets. A tokenized bond or revenue-linked product is a step beyond collectibles, raising a different set of questions for any buyer: who owes the payments, which income supports them, and what rights does the token actually carry.
WAVIST describes its platform as a way to structure K-culture revenue into asset-backed instruments, with issuing companies responsible for their own offerings. Its website points to cash flows from activities such as concerts and content as potential sources of collateral. The rights and payment terms for any specific product would depend on that product’s own issuing documents.
Yuji Kumagai, head of Soneium Protocol, said the network could help creators raise money while giving supporters a financial stake in the work they follow. Creators get a new way to raise funds for the work they want to make, and their supporters share in the value it creates, Kumagai said, identifying K-pop as the starting point for Soneium’s work with entertainment IP.
The network’s scale also backs the ambition. In January, Sony Ventures invested 13 million USD into Startale Group, the firm that helps develop Soneium. Figures cited in that investment announcement said Soneium had already processed more than 500 million transactions and supported over 250 live applications.
## A crowded but unproven niche
The Soneium deal joins other attempts to connect music rights with blockchain-based financing. In February 2025, Music Protocol partnered with Plume to bring music intellectual property onto that network, with a similar focus on access to music-related assets for rights holders and investors. The structures can differ significantly even when projects use the same word, tokenization. A token might record a claim under a bond, represent an interest in a revenue stream, or serve another function defined in an offering’s terms.
DayOneDream and Soneium have described their intended category as K-content assets and associated revenue streams, while leaving the terms of future products to later announcements. Investors should also note that a tokenized bond raises securities questions that a blockchain cannot settle. In a January statement, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said securities, including bonds and notes, can be tokenized, and that token designs may give holders different rights.
Market context as of Sept. 29, 19:45 UTC: Bitcoin trades at 83,438 USD, Ethereum at 2,689.13 USD, and Solana at 118.71 USD, per Binance spot data.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
sony actually shipping something onchain was not on my 2026 bingo card. the may bond went from issuance to redemption to burn, full cycle, and thats rarer than it sounds
agreed but they never disclosed who issued the may bond, the size, or the terms. full lifecycle with zero numbers attached
BTOB and LEE CHAE YEON revenue as tokens is unhinged but kpop fans buy anything with a photocard attached. bonds might genuinely clear here
photocard economics is a real moat tbh. kpop fans clear merch drops in minutes, a BTOB revenue bond sells itself to the same crowd
photocard crowds clear merch drops because they get a physical thing. bond buyers want yield and an issuer name. different wallet entirely, the fandom overlap gets you nowhere near institutional demand
photocard economics winning again lol. a btob fan with a bond position is still a btob fan at heart, and fandoms have deeper pockets than most vcs. sony picked a good demo
tokenized IP revenue is just securitization with extra steps. question is who actually holds the catalog if the partnership goes quiet
Sony putting an L2 under kpop IP bonds at Korea Blockchain Week is a flex. the May bond going issuance to redemption to burn is the only receipt anyone needed
sony’s name is doing more work here than the WAVIST track record. if the first soneium asset is an actual BTOB catalog bond, korea blockchain week quietly becomes a yearly funding market for mid tier agencies
tokenized BTOB revenue streams is a sentence i did not expect to read today. sony’s L2 hosting k-pop IP bonds, we are so far from the 2017 ico timeline
cho framing it as capital reaching the ip directly is the strongest line in the whole release. right now you buy a label stock and get diluted exposure to twenty artists, a btob specific product is a different animal entirely
The full onchain life cycle claim is nice but that May bond had zero disclosure. No issuer, no size, no terms. Track record means nothing if nobody can verify it.
the burn is onchain and verifiable at least, but an issuer name would cost them nothing to publish. weird hill for WAVIST to die on
right, an issuer name and a coupon figure cost nothing and settle the whole debate. hiding both after a clean burn reads intentional at this point
^ hiding the issuer after a clean cycle is a choice at this point. btob catalog or it didnt happen
Fair on the disclosure gaps, but issuance, redemption and the burn are all verifiable onchain. Half the story is annoying when a coupon print costs them nothing, still more receipts than most tokenization press releases
half a receipt is still half a receipt. a burn tx with no issuer attached is an audit trail to nowhere, and WAVIST had months since May to fix one sentence
Agree with the audit trail point. Sony putting its name next to a product with no disclosed coupon is strange. One sentence of issuer info and this announcement reads completely different
the burn proves the token existed. it says nothing about who owed you the money or whether the catalog was ever pledged. issuer name would cost them one line
they burned the redeemed tokens tho, onchain proof at least. but yeah would love to know who actually issued that bond
wait until the first fan union tries to buy a WAVIST bond and korean securities law meets the redemption logic. mid tier agencies funding against catalogs is one lawsuit away from a very short experiment
fan unions already fight agencies over chart manipulation, wait till they find out their bulk buy money sits inside a redemption queue. cassian is right that securities law is the wall here
korea blockchain week is exactly where this deal had to drop. dayonedream is not some shell startup either, btob catalog alone carries real cashflow. curious what memi and 2F fetch tho, newer artists are the riskier tranche
hwanbae has it right, MEMI debuted like a minute ago, tokenizing a catalog that thin is basically pre-selling merch futures. the btob paper will price fine, the newer tranches are pure vibes
everyone arguing disclosure is right but sleeping on sony and startale putting an actual L2 behind entertainment finance. if LEE CHAE YEON revenue streams go onchain before a us etf does i am never logging off