This has been a huge debate between Sonic fans for years. The Sonic fanbase thinks Sonic can run at the speed of light, but Sonic cannot canonically do this without Chaos Emeralds, Level Up Items or Rings/Wisps/Energy. Plus, the Light Speed Dash is seriously slower than light in the gameplay, despite being called the Light Speed Dash, slow enough that it's more of a Ring Dash, and while Sonic can perform the Light Speed Attack, it isn't light speed due to not being almost instant like actual light. Sonic was at his fastest in Sonic Unleashed, but his top SPD is slightly over 3,500, which when translated to metric meters, based on the game's Japanese development, is over Mach 10/just above hypersonic. Sonic's page says that his unaided top speed is unknown, but however, there is canon proof of what Sonic's unaided top speed is. In Sonic Colors, Sonic was able to outrun a Hyper-Go-On black hole for 30 seconds. Assuming that the black hole is similar to a normal black hole, in which black holes pull non-orbiting mass inward at 30% the speed of light, and since Sonic wasn't using the Boost when outrunning the black hole, Sonic's unaided top speed is around 200,000,000 miles per hour!