You don't need to know anything about blockchains to use Sona. But if you want to know what you actually own, where it lives, and who can change it, this is the whole picture, from your phone down to the code that keeps score.
The picture
Four layers, from you down
Green is yours. Blue is the shared, public rulebook on Base, which nobody can quietly edit. Grey is the part Sona runs behind the scenes.
YouYours
Your Base AccountA wallet on your phone, unlocked with Face ID or a passkey. No seed phrase. It signs in to Sona, pays in USDC (digital dollars), and owns everything green below it.
owns · like holding the deed
Your sonaYours
The avatar · SONA01 #4732A one-of-a-kind token. Its tone and hair are set for good the moment it's minted.
Its closetA small wallet that belongs to the avatar itself. Every piece and every posted look lives in here. Sell or give away the avatar and the closet goes with it, fully stocked.
Pieces of clothingPosted looksToday's outfit
created and changed only by · the public rulebook
Sona's contracts on BasePublic · onchain
AvatarsMints each sona and gives it a closet. Remembers what it's wearing.
PiecesEvery design and its edition size. 20% of each edition is set aside for boxes; the rest is sold direct.
LooksOne posted look a day, kept forever as a record in the closet.
ShopSells new sonas, pieces and boxes. Takes your USDC and delivers in the same step.
BoxesA box you bought or earned, sealed until you open it. Checks the opening was fair.
MarketWhere members resell pieces and avatars to each other. Sona keeps 5%.
RewardsTurns points from posting into free boxes, at most one a week.
PermissionsWho may create new pieces, how many, how fast, until when. Sona works inside these limits too.
asks, within limits · never overrides
Sona's servicesBehind the scenes
Sona's serverSigns today's prices and seals what's inside each box in advance. It can't move your money or your pieces.
Points and the feedCounts your posts and streaks, builds the feed, prices the shop. None of this can take anything you own.
Gas and paymentsNetwork fees ("gas") are paid by Sona, so you never see them. Your USDC goes straight from your wallet into the Shop.
Follow one purchase
What happens when you tap Buy
1
Sona quotes the priceserver
A signed price for exactly this piece, good for a few minutes. The Shop won't accept anything below the piece's floor price.
2
You confirm onceyour wallet
One Face ID tap. $1.75 is $1.75; there's no gas to add.
3
The Shop pays and delivers in one steponchain
It checks the quote and that copies are left, takes your USDC and creates your copy in the same transaction. If any part fails, nothing is charged.
4
It lands in your sona's closetyours
Wear it right away. There is no in-between state where you've paid and are waiting.
A few payment methods can't settle in one step, such as a card checkout. For those, Sona takes the payment first and delivers straight after, refunding automatically if delivery fails.
Opening a box
A sealed envelope, not a slot machine
Sona's boxes read your closet. If you have plenty of tops and no shoes, your odds lean toward shoes, within fixed limits, and a run of bad luck slowly raises your chance of something rare. To keep that honest, the draw works like a sealed envelope:
1
You see your odds before you buyserver
Your personal odds for this box are shown and written into the price quote. What you saw is exactly what gets drawn.
2
Sona seals the result in advanceonchain
A fingerprint of the secret that decides your box is recorded publicly before you open it, so it can't be swapped afterwards.
3
You open ityours
You add your own random ingredient, the secret is revealed, and the pieces are created straight into your closet.
4
Anyone can check itonchain
The revealed secret, your ingredient and your locked odds reproduce the exact same pieces, every time.
What you can do with a piece
Wear it, sell it, move it, or burn it
Wear it and postDress your sona and post one look a day. Posting earns points toward free boxes.
Sell it on SonaOnce a piece's edition has sold out, list it in Sona's market. You keep 95%; Sona keeps 5%.
Take it anywhereAfter a sellout, move a piece you're not wearing out to your own wallet and trade it on any marketplace. Sona takes nothing there.
Burn it for pointsEvery piece has a standing points price. Burning removes that copy forever, which makes the rest of the edition a little rarer.
For publishers
How a design gets in, and how the money comes back
Publishers are the houses and creators whose pieces fill Sona: the brands on the tags. They never hold members' money or touch their closets. They register designs, and every time one of their pieces is sold or pulled from a box, they earn a share that is recorded publicly the moment it happens.
1
A design is registeredonchain
The Pieces contract records the design, its slot, its edition size and its floor price. 20% of the edition is set aside for boxes; the rest is sold direct. The edition size is public and can only ever shrink.
2
A member buys it directonchain
The Shop takes the member's USDC and creates their copy in one step. The publisher earns 70% of the price and Sona 30%, written to the publisher's payout ledger in the same transaction.
3
A box pulls one of their piecesonchain
Whether the box was bought, earned or part of a welcome, each piece that comes out of it is drawn from the reserve and pays the publisher 30% of its primary price, the mirror of a direct sale. Boxes are distribution: pieces land in wardrobes that post every day.
4
Payouts settle in USDCSona
The ledger adds up each publisher's direct sales and box pulls. Sona pays it out in USDC in regular batches from its treasury. On the testnet the ledger is recorded but not paid.
5
They can check every numberonchain
Every sale, pull and burn of a design is a public event on Base. A publisher can add up their own earnings from the chain and match them to the payout, without taking Sona's word for it.
Direct salePublisher 70%, Sona 30%. Only while the edition's direct copies last.
Box pullPublisher 30% of the piece's primary price, per piece. Sona keeps the rest of the box price.
ResaleSeller 95%, Sona 5% on Sona's market. No royalty to the publisher; resale opens only after their edition has sold out.
BurnNo payment. The copy is gone for good, so the publisher's remaining edition gets a little rarer.
Safety rails
What keeps it fair
Hard edition limitsThe number of copies of a design is public and can only ever shrink, never grow.
Limits on Sona itselfThe server can only create what its permissions allow: so many a day, from a set pool, until an expiry date.
Resale after selloutNobody can undercut a drop while it's still on sale. Trading opens when the direct copies are gone.
No empty-closet salesIf pieces leave an avatar's closet, that avatar can't change hands for 24 hours, so nobody buys a sona that was emptied after it was listed.
Pay and receive togetherA purchase completes in full or doesn't happen at all, and a quote can only ever be used once.
Your stuff stays yoursIf Sona's servers went down, you could still dress, post, burn and trade. Only new purchases would wait.
Words you'll see
A short glossary
Base
A public blockchain built by Coinbase. Think of it as a shared ledger that anyone can read and nobody can secretly rewrite.
Contract
A program living on Base that enforces rules exactly as written, for everyone, including Sona.
Token / NFT
A record on Base saying who owns something. Your sona is one; each piece of clothing is another.
Closet (token-bound account)
A wallet owned by your avatar rather than by you directly, so the avatar and its wardrobe travel together.
USDC
A digital dollar. One USDC is worth one US dollar.
Gas
The small network fee every change on Base costs. Sona pays it for you.
Edition
How many copies of a design will ever exist. Smaller editions are rarer.