Sony’s Soneium Network Debuts ‘Gas-Free’ Startale App, Ditches Seed Phrases

Sony Block Solutions Labs and Japan’s Startale Group have opened a closed beta for the , a unified entry point to Soneium, the Ethereum Layer 2 Sony is building with Startale.

The app is meant to strip away the usual Web3 friction by creating wallets without seed phrases and letting users transact on Soneium without paying gas, so new users can join token drops and app launches without touching raw blockchain tooling. This turns Soneium into a cleaner consumer funnel at a time when the network is already reporting millions of wallets and daily transactions.

The Startale App uses account abstraction so anyone can spin up a wallet with just an email and start using Soneium straight away. Transactions are handled in the background, so there is no separate gas token to manage.

This solves the two biggest onboarding blockers and makes it easier for Soneium projects to drop rewards or run TGEs for non-crypto users. This keeps Soneium aligned with Sony’s wider goal of putting blockchain behind familiar interfaces.

Alongside the wallet experience the app supports Mini Apps, a framework that lets developers build inside the Startale App instead of sending users off to separate sites. This gives new dApps a pre-warmed audience and a place to surface incentives, early access, or loyalty programs.

It also fits Soneium’s push to become an L2 suitable for entertainment, gaming, and consumer services where drop-style distribution matters.

Startale and Sony said several Soneium projects will route rewards through the app during the beta. Early users can pre-register, earn STAR points, and qualify for future campaigns while the teams finalize the public release.

This positions the app as the place to watch for Soneium ecosystem launches rather than just another wallet. It also signals that Sony wants to centralize its L2’s first wave of user growth in one product instead of scattering it across third-party wallets.