New Somnia Data Streams Give Devs A Powerful Advantage

Somnia Data Streams is coming, and it will rewrite the rules for how blockchain applications handle real-time data.

Somnia’s architecture has enabled massive-scale applications to run entirely onchain, but more innovations are needed to fully realize their potential. Traditional blockchains struggle with reading and writing data at the speed and scale that these applications demand. Standard Ethereum RPCs were designed for Ethereum’s scale, not the demands of real time applications. They’re missing crucial features that developers have come to expect, like streaming state changes in real time.

Somnia Data Streams solves this by introducing new RPCs built specifically for high-performance reading and writing on Somnia. Instead of paying indexers to constantly poll the blockchain for every individual data call and update, applications can soon subscribe to the information they need and receive automatic updates whenever state changes. This low-latency subscription model eliminates redundant transactions, reduces costs, and enables real-time responsiveness that wasn’t possible before.

Data Streams makes building onchain applications feel more like working with modern databases like Firebase, while maintaining all the benefits of blockchain infrastructure.

Building Without Barriers

Currently, building a real-time blockchain application requires massive technical overhead. Developers need to set up complex systems just to track data changes, manage live updates, and handle user authentication without constant interruptions. Even after all this work, the experience still feels clunky compared to regular web applications.

Data Streams eliminates most of this complexity. It handles data subscriptions automatically, streamlines user authentication, and provides ready-made templates for common features. Developers can focus on building their actual product instead of rebuilding basic infrastructure from scratch.

This matters especially for traditional game studios and app developers who are used to modern tools like Firebase. For web3-native developers, Data Streams reduces reliance on external services. Instead of depending on third-party indexers or oracle networks, applications can consume verified state directly from the chain. This lowers trust assumptions, reduces points of failure, and cuts ongoing operational costs.

Better Prediction Markets

Prediction markets have exploded in popularity recently. Platforms like Polymarket are processing billions in volume, proving there’s massive demand for onchain speculation beyond just token trading. Despite this growth, the technology behind these platforms remains surprisingly primitive.

Most prediction markets today rely heavily on off-chain infrastructure. Oracles fetch outcomes from external sources. Settlement happens manually or through centralized third parties. This limits the types of bets that are possible. Complex, specific wagers are difficult to offer because there’s no way to verify outcomes and settle instantly. When disputes happen, the platform has to step in and decide who’s right. This turns the platform into a middleman you have to trust, which defeats the entire purpose of using blockchain in the first place.

Somnia Data Streams solves this problem by allowing applications to subscribe to structured event streams. This enables far more sophisticated markets. Instead of simple binary bets on match outcomes, users can wager on granular in-game events. Who scores the next goal. Which driver completes the fastest lap. How many kills a gamer executes in the next five minutes.

For racing, a betting market can tap directly into live timing data to track which driver is fastest. When the race ends, payouts happen automatically based on verified results. For team sports, live possession stats can shift betting odds in real time based on which team is controlling the ball. As the game unfolds, participants see odds adjust instantly to reflect what’s actually happening on the field.

This model scales to any domain where structured event data exists onchain, like Esports matches, financial instrument movements, governance proposal outcomes, and even AI model performance metrics. If the data is streaming through Somnia, a prediction market can be built around it.

Rethinking Insurance

Prediction markets on Somnia have implications that extend well beyond sports betting and gaming. One of the most compelling applications is insurance where payouts are triggered automatically based on verifiable events rather than lengthy claims processes.

Traditional insurance is slow and expensive. When a flight is delayed, a crop fails due to drought, or a natural disaster strikes, policyholders file claims, insurers investigate, and settlements can take weeks or months. The administrative overhead drives up costs, and disputes over coverage terms create friction at exactly the moment people need support most.

Somnia Data Streams enables a different model. Insurance contracts can subscribe to event streams that track flight departures, weather data, seismic activity, or any other measurable condition. When the predefined threshold is met, payouts execute automatically. A flight delayed by more than three hours triggers immediate compensation. Rainfall below a certain level activates crop insurance. An earthquake above a specified magnitude releases disaster relief funds.

This approach removes the need for claims adjusters, reduces processing costs, and eliminates disputes over whether an event qualifies for coverage. The data is onchain and verifiable. The contract executes deterministically. Policyholders receive funds instantly when they need them most, without paperwork or waiting periods.

The composability of Data Streams makes these products easier to build and more accessible. Weather data providers, flight tracking services, and IoT sensor networks can publish structured event streams that insurance products subscribe to directly. Developers don’t need to negotiate individual data partnerships or build custom integrations. They subscribe to the relevant schema and build their coverage logic on top.

This creates opportunities for new types of coverage that weren’t economically viable before. Microinsurance for gig workers. Event cancellation protection for small venues. Yield protection for individual farmers. The administrative costs that made these products unprofitable in traditional insurance disappear when settlement is automatic and trustless.

Data Streams and Somnia Dreams

Somnia has always been about removing the constraints that limit what can be built onchain. Data Streams takes that vision further by making real-time, reactive applications not just possible, but practical. What gets built next is up to the developers who see the potential and move first.

Data Streams with onchain reactivity will be fully available early next year, with the subscription RPCs rolling out first in the coming months, so sign up for the mailing list and be first to know when the SDK is available!