Sonic Labs has announced significant leadership changes. Following the news, the token of the blockchain project, S, dropped by more than 6%.
https://t.co/FIRsfTU6vg
— Sonic (@SonicLabs) June 19, 2026
The board of directors of the EVM-based layer-one network developer saw the departure of:
- former CEO and director Michael Kong;
- executive chairman David Richardson;
- co-founder and CTO Andre Cronje.
The company described them as the “architects of the current Sonic,” emphasizing their role in laying the foundation for the project’s future development.
New CEO and COO
Matt Visser has taken over as CEO, while Costa Kourkoumelis has become the COO.
The new leadership stated that their priority is not to present a new roadmap but to streamline operations and restore community trust.
“I am not going to promise an instant turnaround. My goal is to make Sonic 1% better every day and let that effect compound,” Visser said.
Team Acknowledges Issues
In a message to the community, Sonic Labs openly acknowledged the decline in market performance and investor sentiment.
“The token is falling. Community sentiment is worsening. We see it and are not going to pretend the problem doesn’t exist,” the statement read.
In January 2025, S reached an all-time high of $1.03. At the time of writing, the asset is trading at $0.028, 97.2% below its peak.
The leadership suggested viewing the current moment as “day one” of a new phase in the project’s development. Instead of making short-term promises, the team pledged to focus on gradual improvements over the next 100 days.
Focus on Transparency and Risk Management
Among the key changes, Sonic highlighted increased management transparency, the creation of a separate risk and compliance committee, and more open engagement with S holders.
The company promised to publish more specific information about decisions and to avoid formal announcements without practical content.
Development Continues
Despite the personnel changes, Sonic emphasized that the technical team has continued its work without interruption. Since the beginning of 2026, developers have merged around 400 significant pull requests into the main GitHub branch, released two network updates, and are continuing to test version 2.2.0 in a closed testnet.
The company noted that technology remains the ecosystem’s main asset and has continued to evolve independently of organizational changes.
In March, the Sonic team introduced the “institutional” stablecoin USSD.
