Somnia Founder Paul Thomas Revolutionizes Web3 Gaming with 1 Million Transactions Per Second

Paul Thomas, the founder of Somnia, a next-generation Layer 1 blockchain, is at the forefront of revolutionizing Web3 gaming. With over a decade of experience in large-scale systems and virtual worlds, including his significant contributions to Improbable, Thomas brings a unique perspective to the challenges and opportunities in Web3 gaming. Somnia is designed to support real-time, fully on-chain applications at internet scale, delivering over 1 million transactions per second with sub-second finality and sub-cent fees. This infrastructure makes it possible to build immersive, composable, and persistent digital experiences fully on-chain.

In an interview, Thomas shared his vision for the future of Web3 gaming. He highlighted that the current infrastructure has not been ready for high-performance, real-time applications like gaming. Most blockchains struggle under the load of thousands of micro-interactions per second, leading to games that are essentially Web2 games with a wallet and some NFTs added on. The high cost of transactions also poses a significant barrier, as players are unlikely to pay for in-game actions if the network charges more than the assets are worth.

Thomas believes that for Web3 games to compete with traditional titles, blockchain needs to be treated as the runtime, not just an add-on. This means having the game itself on-chain, including metadata, items, quests, and game logic. Such a setup would eliminate the need for centralized servers, platform lock-in, and opaque rules, allowing games to live forever, be extended by anyone, and evolve through the community. However, this requires blockchains to be fast and cheap enough to handle gameplay itself, not just asset ownership.

Somnia was built specifically to overcome these infrastructure limitations. Unlike other Layer 1 chains, Somnia optimizes for real-time, high-frequency use cases from day one. It focuses on making the EVM as fast as possible, running millions of transactions per second on a single core, and building a database system with deterministic performance. Combined with MultiStream consensus and sub-cent fees, Somnia provides a platform that can support on-chain gameplay, not just on-chain assets.

Thomas also emphasized the importance of composability in Web3 games. Composability means that games should be modular, allowing developers to build on existing mechanics rather than starting from scratch. This could lead to new gameplay models, such as prediction markets, reactive quests, and games with real consequences. The presence of tangible risk and reward makes the gaming experience more compelling, as games feel more alive when something is actually at stake.

Thomas advised developers exploring Web3 to start small but start on-chain, experimenting to uncover the unique value of this medium. He also highlighted the importance of choosing infrastructure designed to support gaming at internet scale. Somnia is onboarding developers who want to push the boundaries of what is possible on-chain, offering grants and accelerator programs to make it easier to build high-performance applications.

Looking ahead, Thomas is excited about the future of gaming and Web3. He envisions the emergence of games that couldn't have existed before, focusing on community creativity, interoperability, and player agency. As Web3 gaming continues to evolve, projects like Somnia are working to move the industry beyond speculation and toward substance, offering a glimpse into a future where on-chain games are not only possible but powerful.