Original Article Title: "Monad's Ambition: From Parallel Execution to Large-Scale Applications"

Original Source: K1 Research, Klein Labs

Key Points:

1. Monad is a Layer 1 public chain focusing on "high performance + full EVM compatibility," with a total funding of over 240 million USD. The mainnet is expected to launch by the end of 2025 and is poised to become a disruptor in the public chain space where "performance and compatibility are mutually exclusive." Its optimistic parallel EVM design is the core technological breakthrough direction.

2. Adopting the "MonadBFT consensus + optimistic parallel EVM" architecture, it can achieve 0.8-1 second single-round speculation finality and 70%-80% transaction parallel execution. The performance stability in complex scenarios still needs further verification after the mainnet goes live.

3. Compared to other parallel EVM projects in the same space, Monad has formed a differentiated advantage with an "independent Layer 1 architecture + full EVM native compatibility + over 240 million USD funding reserve." During the testnet phase, it has demonstrated the performance potential of 0.5-second block intervals.

4. The ecosystem has gathered over 280 projects, with a total ecosystem funding of 13.2 billion USD. Through mechanisms such as hackathons and dedicated accelerators, the ecosystem's bootstrapping is being promoted, with capital flowing towards DeFi infrastructure and core application layers.

5. With "Builders First" as a core strategy to attract developers, despite facing controversies such as mainnet progress and validator decentralization, the ecosystem's friendliness and technological innovation provide long-term support for value. Subsequently, breaking through the performance commitment and user retention at scale will be key propositions.

1. Emerging Public Chain Monad: Background and Development Milestones

1.1 Disruptor Monad: Positioning, Origin, and Vision

Looking back at the development of public chains, Ethereum has built the largest ecosystem based on EVM compatibility, but performance bottlenecks have always restricted its scalable applications. Solana, with its super high TPS, briefly became a representative of "high-performance public chains," but faced a trust crisis due to insufficient decentralization and technical stability issues. The experiences and lessons of these two major public chains provide a clear reference for Monad's positioning.

The emergence of Monad precisely targets the core pain point of the current public chain track, where "performance and compatibility are mutually exclusive." Its core positioning is as a "Layer 1 public chain that combines ultimate performance with full EVM compatibility." Unlike some public chains that sacrifice EVM compatibility for performance or compromise performance for EVM compatibility, Monad, starting from the underlying architecture design, attempts to break this "dilemma." It aims to achieve a high-performance breakthrough through innovative consensus mechanisms and execution layer optimizations while maintaining seamless compatibility with Ethereum's EVM. This allows developers to migrate applications to Monad without code refactoring and provides users with low-latency, low-cost transaction experiences.

From an original standpoint, the birth of Monad directly addresses the real-world bottleneck of the Ethereum ecosystem. With the explosive growth of applications such as DeFi, NFTs, and GameFi, the Ethereum network has frequently experienced issues during peak times, such as TPS falling below 15, gas fees skyrocketing to tens or even hundreds of dollars, and transaction confirmation delays exceeding 10 minutes. For example, during the 2021 "bull market" period, the gas fee for a single NFT transaction on OpenSea reached a peak of $196, forcing ordinary users out of high-frequency trading scenarios. Liquidation transactions on DeFi protocols often failed during network congestion, leading to user asset losses. Although Ethereum has partially alleviated the pressure through Layer 2 scaling solutions, the interaction costs between Layer 2 and the mainnet, as well as cross-chain complexity, remain unresolved. The Monad team is composed of engineers with years of experience in blockchain core development who have been deeply involved in Ethereum core protocol optimization and Solana performance tuning. Its core members are acutely aware that to achieve large-scale commercial use of blockchain technology, the "performance, compatibility, and decentralization" trilemma must be tackled at the Layer 1 level, which has become the core motivation behind the Monad project.

Monad's long-term vision is not simply to replace an existing public chain but to build a "universal platform" for the next generation of blockchain infrastructure. On one hand, through performance targets of 10,000 TPS, 1-second finality, and an average gas fee "below 1 cent," Monad aims to meet the demands of high-frequency trading, large-scale gaming, real-time data interaction, and other scenarios that Ethereum cannot currently support. On the other hand, relying on full EVM compatibility, Monad seeks to attract developers and project resources from the Ethereum ecosystem, forming a seamless transition and efficient operation ecosystem. Ultimately, through a dynamic validator mechanism and distributed storage solution, the network's decentralization is ensured, allowing ordinary nodes to participate in network maintenance. From a more macro perspective, Monad hopes to drive blockchain technology from "niche exploration" to "mass application," providing underlying support for the digital transformation of traditional industries such as finance, logistics, healthcare, and social media, truly realizing the industry vision of "empowering the real economy with high-performance blockchains."

1.2 At a Glance! Monad's "Rapid Growth" Timeline

From this timeline, it is evident that Monad's "star-studded" status is not accidental but rather the inevitable result of the synergy among capital support, talent strength, and technological grounding:

In terms of financing, with a clear technical positioning and broad development prospects, Monad has successfully attracted continuous support from top-tier industry capital. In 2023, it completed a $19 million seed round led by Dragonfly Capital and in 2024, it secured a $225 million funding round led by Paradigm. The two rounds of financing totaled over $240 million, with participation from renowned institutions such as Coinbase Ventures and Electric Capital. The project's valuation simultaneously rose to $30 billion, laying a solid financial foundation for technical breakthroughs, team expansion, and ecosystem development;

At the team level, core members all come from top financial and technology institutions such as Jump Trading and Goldman Sachs, with deep expertise in distributed system design, low-latency trading optimization, and some members having been deeply involved in Ethereum core protocol iterations and Solana performance tuning. Their professional technical background has provided a key guarantee for the project to break through the industry pain points of "performance-compatibility-decentralization";

On the technical implementation level, the performance during the testnet phase further confirmed its potential—achieving a peak TPS of 5200 post-launch, processing over 334 million RPC requests within 12 hours, and the total on-chain address surpassing 300 million. This not only validated the feasibility and stability of core technologies such as parallel EVM and MonadBFT but also demonstrated strong attractiveness to users and developers.

The organic combination of capital, talent, and technical implementation capability has jointly formed the core driving force for Monad's rapid development in the public chain track, enabling it to stand out in fierce competition.

1.3 Uncertainties and Future Outlook

Although Monad has faced some challenges in its development process, these challenges have also provided opportunities for the project to improve its technology and drive ecosystem growth. Currently, the uncertainties surrounding Monad mainly focus on aspects such as the mainnet release time, changes in user activity, and the efficiency of fund utilization. However, as the testnet continues to run, the gradual launch of the mainnet will further clarify the project's progress and potential. Community concerns are more based on expected differences and typical issues in the early stages rather than fatal flaws in the project itself.

In the future, when monitoring Monad's development, we should not only pay close attention to whether its commitment to high-performance goals can be achieved on time but also focus particularly on the progress of technical delivery, the effectiveness of decentralized execution, and the actual implementation of ecosystem construction. As the mainnet launch approaches, these factors will determine Monad's true competitiveness in the public chain space.

Subsequent analyses of Monad will delve into multiple dimensions such as network data and operational metrics, technical deconstruction, competitive landscape and advantages analysis, ecosystem development, community culture, and builder motivations to comprehensively assess its development potential and long-term risks.

2. Network Data and Operational Metrics

2.1 Performance Metrics

Transaction Throughput and Success Rate: The Monad Testnet Overview Dashboard shows that as of the end of August 2025, the testnet has processed approximately 255 million successful transactions, with an average success rate of 98.18% over the past 90 days. The institutional validator Twinstake's node achieved a 100% block production rate and 100% proposal rate in Testnet-2, with the validation network's average block production rate at around 98.75%, indicating stable consensus efficiency even under high-performance goals.

Source: Twinstake | Monad in the Wild: Institutional Insights from Testnet Deployment

● TPS and Fees: The panel displays a TPS peak reaching 300–350 TPS in March–April 2025 (with a weekly average of around 100 TPS). The actual throughput still falls short of the official claimed theoretical TPS of 10,000; the median transaction fee over the past 90 days is approximately 0.0028 MON.

● Block Delay: Although the panel does not directly provide the average block time, the steady transaction throughput observed between June and July 2025 suggests no widespread failures, with block intervals maintained at sub-second levels, validating the stability of the testnet's parallel processing architecture.

2.2 On-chain Data

● Address and Wallet Activity: The Monad Foundation panel records 310,630,141 unique addresses. The BlockRaptor panel defines "active wallets" as addresses that have conducted at least one successful transaction, estimating around 309,903,696 active wallets, with an average of approximately 7 transactions per wallet.

Source: https://dune.com/monad_foundation/monad-testnet-overview-dashboard

● Transaction Distribution and Temporal Evolution: The BlockRaptor "Active Wallets & Tx By Month" chart illustrates a significant "pump and dump" pattern in testnet user growth: active wallets surged from 86.92 million in March to 215 million in April, then dropped to 11.28 million in May, stabilizing in the 4 million range from June to August; corresponding monthly transaction counts per wallet decreased from 6 in March to 3 in April, then rebounded to ranges like 29, 83, and 111 post-May. This data reveals that the early mass registrations driven by "airdrop expectations" did not sustain continuous activity.

● Smart Contracts and Contract Creators: According to official figures, by the end of August, a total of 36,108,124 contracts had been deployed by 2,975,837 contract creators. The BlockRaptor panel's monthly statistics show that contract creation peaked in March–April (with 6–8 thousand additions per month), followed by a decline, but the cumulative number continued to grow steadily.

● Wallet Behavior Distribution: The BlockRaptor panel provides a breakdown of active wallets by transaction count each month: In April, 209.5 million wallets performed only one transaction, accounting for 97.5% of that month's total active wallets; only 0.9% of wallets executed 10 or more transactions within the month. Overall, up to August, there were 293,597,158 wallets that only transacted once, representing about 89% of all active wallets, further indicating that testnet users are mostly short-term "participatory" users.

2.3 Decentralization Status

● Node Validators and Smart Contract Creators: The current active validators on the Monad testnet are approximately 186. From the validator table, it can be seen that all validators have a uniform staking amount of 200 units, with a success rate generally close to 100%, demonstrating strong consistency. Validators hail from various countries, including Romania, Germany, Ireland, South Korea, and Singapore. This indicates that Monad has achieved initial balance between performance and decentralization, leaving room to expand the validator set for the mainnet phase.

Source: https://www.gmonads.com/validators

From the comprehensive data on the performance, user participation, and developer activities of the Monad testnet: the accumulation of billions of transactions and over 300 million active wallets reflects early market interest, but user stickiness and real activity levels are relatively low; only a few users maintain high-frequency transactions each month, with a transaction success rate consistently above 98% and very low transaction fees, indicating that the core technical architecture can support high loads but is still in the ramp-up phase.

3. Technical Breakdown

3.1 Consensus Layer: MonadBFT—Making High-Performance Consensus More Reliable

Monad achieves high performance, with one of its core aspects being the self-developed MonadBFT consensus mechanism. It is based on the 2018 HotStuff consensus improvement, addressing both the congestion issue of traditional BFT protocols (e.g., PBFT) as nodes increase their messages and fixing the common "tail fork" vulnerability in HotStuff, laying a foundation for the high performance of the entire chain.

3.1.1 Four Core Innovations of MonadBFT

1. Preventing Tail Forks: The new leader must first suggest the last valid block, only proposing a new block when the majority of validators "have not seen this block" to ensure that valid blocks are not lost;

2.  Fast Confirmation: A single vote is a "basic confirmation" transaction, completed within a few hundred milliseconds, and will not roll back unless the proposer is malicious;

3. Flexible Response: There is no fixed block time, and the network reaches consensus in 200-300 milliseconds. There is a quick switch when the leader fails;

4. Scalability: Validators only communicate with the leader in one direction, and the performance is not affected even with hundreds of nodes participating.

3.1.2 Comparison with the HotStuff Family of Protocols

3.2 Execution Layer: Optimistic Parallel EVM — Compatibility and Performance

The execution layer of Monad adopts the Optimistic Parallel EVM, which is fully compatible with the Ethereum EVM ecosystem and breaks through performance bottlenecks through parallel processing.

3.2.1 Core Positioning: Embracing the Ecosystem Bonus through "Full Compatibility"

Supporting the latest Ethereum instructions and pre-built functions, existing contracts can be deployed without modification, and common tools (such as Hardhat, MetaMask) can be directly integrated, significantly reducing developer migration costs.

3.2.2 Technological Breakthrough: Optimistic Parallel Execution and Conflict Rollback Mechanism

Monad improves efficiency through an "execute first, verify later" optimistic parallel mechanism: unrelated transactions are grouped for parallel processing. If transactions modify the same data, the conflicting results are rolled back and then rerun in order. Empirical evidence shows that 70%-80% of transactions can be processed in parallel, with DeFi scene efficiency being 8-10 times that of Ethereum.

3.2.3 Points of Differentiation Advantage from Ethereum Rollups

3.3 Technical Synergy Value: Advantages and Realistic Considerations from an Objective Perspective

Monad's consensus layer and execution layer strive to break the "trilemma" of public blockchains—performance, compatibility, and decentralization—through technical synergy. However, its actual value needs to be objectively evaluated based on technical features and practical challenges.

3.3.1 Verified Core Advantages: Addressing Industry-Recognized Pain Points

From the performance on the testnet and technical design perspective, Monad's technical composition has demonstrated targeted improvement value:

● User Experience: Transaction confirmation compressed from "minutes" to "milliseconds," Gas fees are only 1/20-1/30 of Ethereum's, balancing speed and stability;

● Developer Friendly: Zero migration cost, enabling possibilities for highly frequent transactions, blockchain games, and applications that are difficult to support on Ethereum;

● Ecosystem Integration: Directly connected to Ethereum's $520 billion TVL and massive developer resources, accelerating ecosystem maturity.

3.3.2 Real-world Challenges to be Observed: Uncertainty in Technical Implementation

● Performance in Complex Transaction Scenarios: Need for mainnet validation of processing efficiency for transactions with multiple cross-dependencies;

● Decentralization of Validators: Balancing the participation threshold of regular nodes with consensus efficiency;

● Ecosystem Differentiation: Attracting Ethereum Layer 2 developers for migration, reinforcing scenario advantages.

4. Competitive Landscape and Advantage Analysis

4.1 Core Public Chain Performance and Ecosystem Comparison: Monad & MegaETH & BSC & Sei

4.2 Comprehensive Review: Monad's Core Competitiveness and Breakthrough Challenges in the High-Performance EVM Public Chain Race

In the differentiated competition of the high-performance EVM track, Monad has significant advantages in terms of capital strength, technical roadmap, and ecosystem compatibility, laying a solid foundation for its rapid growth in the track.

Core Barriers in Track Competition

1. Dual Moats of Capital and Ecosystem Migration: Monad has raised approximately $244 million in total funding, far exceeding MegaETH (about $43 million) and Sei, providing strong support for technical development and ecosystem initiation. More importantly, Monad's nearly zero-cost contract migration path due to 100% compatibility with Ethereum bytecode: developers do not need to rewrite contracts, and users do not need to change wallets or habits. This feature significantly reduces the barriers for the ecosystem to migrate from Ethereum to Monad, enabling it to quickly attract the potential of DeFi and dApps.

2. Performance Positioning Advantage of an Independent Public Chain: As an independent L1, Monad adopts self-developed MonadBFT consensus and Optimistic Parallel EVM, aiming for a throughput of 5000–10,000 TPS and a performance target with finality in 0.8-1 second, striving to achieve high performance without sacrificing decentralization. In comparison, MegaETH pursues sub-millisecond latency through a single sequencer, but with significant centralization controversies; BSC's PoSA model has only 21 validators, limiting decentralization; while Sei v2 can provide batch processing throughput of over 28k TPS, it still requires validation on the Mainnet. Monad's positioning makes it more attractive in scenarios requiring an independent security boundary.

Overall, Monad has established a significant advantage in the high-performance EVM track due to its ample capital, full EVM compatibility, and high-performance positioning as an independent public chain. If it can successfully achieve its performance goals, enhance decentralization, and nurture the application ecosystem, it is expected to become a benchmark for a "high-performance + fully compatible" independent public chain.

5.  Ecosystem Development

5.1 Ecosystem Capital Dynamics: Leading Projects Favor by A-list VCs

As a next-generation Layer 1 public chain with a cumulative funding amount exceeding $240 million and a valuation surpassing $3 billion, Monad's own capital attractiveness has also extended to the ecosystem level. Its top ecosystem projects have received intensive investments from A-list institutions such as Pantera Capital and Binance Labs, injecting strong momentum into the ecosystem's cold start.

Currently, Monad's ecosystem projects mainly focus on seed rounds and angel rounds, with capital enthusiasm concentrated in areas with "strong technical adaptability and clear use-case scenarios." The following will outline representative projects in the ecosystem across multiple tracks to demonstrate its diversified layout characteristics.

5.2 Ecosystem Expansion: Portal Acquisition and Stablecoin Deployment

In July 2025, the Monad Foundation completed the acquisition of Portal, marking a key step in Monad's strategic layout in the stablecoin and payment infrastructure field. Portal is a company that provides cross-chain stablecoin wallets and payment solutions, and its platform can already support multi-million-dollar scale stablecoin daily settlements through this acquisition.

The Monad Foundation's acquisition of Portal has the following strategic significance:

1. Rapid entry into the stablecoin market, reducing reliance on external stablecoins;

2. Strengthening the underlying financial infrastructure to provide reliable support for DeFi, payments, and trading scenarios;

3. Through direct foundation investment, signaling a key focus on developing the stablecoin and payment scenarios to the ecosystem.

Overall, the Portal acquisition event is not only a capital investment but also Monad's forward-looking layout in financial infrastructure and stablecoin ecosystem before the mainnet launch, providing solid support for the subsequent landing of DeFi and payment scenarios.

5.3 Ecosystem Scale: Preliminary Layout and Growth Potential Before Mainnet Launch

According to official 2025 Monad statistics, its official ecosystem directory has included nearly 280 projects, covering diverse fields such as DeFi, infrastructure, AI, gaming, payments, DePIN, and more, forming a layout feature of "full-track coverage and prominent focus areas."

It is worth noting that, although the mainnet has not yet officially launched, Monad has attracted a large number of high-quality entrepreneurial teams due to its technical advantages of "high performance (high throughput, low latency) + full EVM compatibility" combined with top-tier capital endorsement and industry influence. The current ecosystem has transitioned from the early "conceptual incubation" stage to the key preparation phase of "application function testing, scenario refinement"—for example, several core applications in the DeFi sector have completed testnet iterations, and infrastructure projects have also achieved initial integration with the ecosystem, laying a solid foundation for the rapid growth of user base and transaction volume after the mainnet launch.

5.4 Ecosystem Composition: Multi-Track Project Matrix and Core Cases

The Monad ecosystem presents a pattern of "DeFi as the core, multi-track collaborative extension": DeFi projects lead with a quantity of 12, becoming the most active core track in the ecosystem; Wallet as a key entry point for user engagement has gathered 4 projects; at the same time, "foundational infrastructure" tracks such as Identity, Data Analytics, and Infrastructure, as well as innovative tracks like AI and Prediction Markets, have all seen projects landing, reflecting the ecosystem's expansion logic from "core financial scenarios" to "foundational support + diverse applications."

Source: Monad

Combining funding dynamics and official support priorities, the following focuses on core projects in the Monad ecosystem that are funding-intensive and officially promoted, analyzing the development potential and implementation progress of each track.

5.4.1 DeFi Infrastructure and Core Applications (Funding-Intensive Area)

1. aPriori (@apr_labs)

● Funding: Seed round + Strategic investment totaling over $30 million (led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Yzi Labs).

● Positioning: MEV-optimized LSD derivative platform, focusing on the Monad native staking ecosystem.

● Highlights: By leveraging MEV capture technology to reduce Gas costs by over 30%, supporting the issuance of various staking derivatives; supported by the Monad Foundation's "Fundraising & Foundry Program," it is a DeFi ecosystem "benchmark project."

2. Fastlane Labs (@0xFastLane)

● Funding: $6 million in Series A funding (led by Figment Capital and DBA) and $2.3 million in Seed funding (led by Multicoin Capital).

● Focus: Provider of low-latency transaction execution optimization solutions.

● Highlights: Compressed transaction confirmation latency to sub-millisecond levels, suitable for high-frequency trading and derivative transactions; customized transaction packaging logic for MonadBFT consensus, serving as ecosystem-level "performance base" infrastructure.

3. Kintsu (@KintsuFinance)

● Funding: $4 million in Seed funding (led by Castle Island Ventures).

● Focus: Liquidity staking service platform.

● Highlights: Supports staking of native Monad tokens and multi-chain assets, deeply integrated with Monad's consensus mechanism to ensure asset security and yield efficiency; core project in the Monad ecosystem's "Staking Layer."

4. Curvance (@Curvance)

● Recognition: Received the official "Eco Pioneer" label from Monad during the testnet phase, ranked Top 3 in community popularity.

● Focus: Multi-chain lending market (with a focus on the Monad mainnet).

● Highlights: Supports lending for over 15 assets, integrates Monad's low Gas advantage, with borrowing rates 40% lower than Ethereum Layer 2; testnet phase surpassed 100,000 users, poised to become the ecosystem's "lending hub" post mainnet launch.

5. Perpl (@perpltrade)

● Funding: Approximately $9.25 million in a strategic/seed round (led by Dragonfly).

● Focus: Decentralized perpetual contract exchange (perps DEX) built on the Monad chain, utilizing an EVM architecture, and planning to employ an on-chain Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) mechanism.

● Highlights: ① Plan to launch the testnet by the end of the year, allowing users to try it out in advance and help discover bugs; ② Utilize Monad's low latency + EVM compatibility to improve transaction experience and compliance speed (token listing may be faster compared to traditional trading platforms); ③ Concentrate all liquidity in the perpetual contract rather than scattered across multiple expiry months (unlike options with multiple expiry contracts) to enhance liquidity depth and trading experience.

6. Modus Finance (@Modus_Finance)

● Positioning: A DeFi lending protocol emphasizing high capital efficiency and composability, supporting LST, LRT, LP tokens, stablecoins, and other assets.

● Highlights: Offers up to 95% LTV lending capability, enhancing leverage and asset utilization efficiency; reduces system risk through modular markets and supports automatic leverage strategies (Looping Vault) to help users maximize returns, especially tailored for Monad's ecosystem reward assets.

5.4.2 Infrastructure and User Entry Points

1.Monorail (@monorail_xyz)

● Positioning: A DEX Aggregator (integrating AMM and CLOB liquidity).

● Highlights: The first "all-type DEX Aggregator" supporting the Monad ecosystem, able to route the best prices from CLOBs and AMMs like Kuru, CrystalExch, reducing slippage by 20% compared to a single DEX; the testnet phase processes over 50,000 transactions per day.

2.Kuru Exchange (@KuruExchange)

● Funding: Series A $11.6 million (Originally $2 million seed round led by Electric Capital, followed by a Series A led by Paradigm).

● Positioning: Recently pivoted its business by launching the Kuru Flow smart aggregator, retaining an order book with integrated AMMs, and connecting to all major liquidity sources on Monad, aiming to be the premier spot trading venue on Monad.

● Highlights: Adopts a "custodial account + Uniswap-like Lite Mode" dual architecture, catering to both professional traders and novices; one of the largest DEXs in terms of trading volume within the ecosystem.

3. Clober (@CloberDEX)

● Positioning: A full-chain order book DEX based on the LOBSTER mechanism (Monad native).

● Highlights: Utilizing a Segment Tree LOBSTER matching engine and a self-developed Octopus Heap data structure to significantly reduce matching gas costs and improve efficiency; an asynchronous settlement mechanism decouples trading from funds, optimizing on-chain execution performance.

5.4.3 Innovative Scenarios and Subdivision Tracks

1. CrystalExch (@CrystalExch)

● Positioning: The first on-chain CLOB exchange in the EVM ecosystem (Monad native).

● Highlights: The order book is fully on-chain, with transparency comparable to centralized exchanges; leveraging Monad's high throughput, the matching speed is 10 times faster than Ethereum's CLOB.

2. Zona Finance (@zona_io)

● Positioning: A Real World Asset (RWA) super app.

● Highlights: Supports on-chain prediction, lending, and trading of RWAs such as real estate and commodities; combined with Monad's low-latency characteristic, RWA price oracle update speed reaches "seconds," representing a core attempt to "connect traditional finance" in the ecosystem.

3. Levr Bet (@Levr_Bet)

● Support: Winner of the "Most Innovative Award" in the "Monad Madness" hackathon.

●          
Positioning: A decentralized leveraged sports betting platform.

● Highlights: Offers 5x leveraged sports betting, achieving "on-chain fair settlement" through smart contracts; during the testnet phase, partnerships were formed with data providers of NBA, Premier League, and other events, setting the benchmark for the "Web3 Sports" track in the ecosystem.

4. Plato2Earn (@plato2earn)

● Positioning: "Eat-to-Earn" platform.

● Key Feature: Users receive $FAT token rewards by uploading receipts after dining at partner restaurants; leveraging Monad's low-cost feature, on-chain reward settlement gas fees are less than 1 cent, making it an innovative case of ecosystem integration between the physical world and the blockchain.

5. RareBetSports (@RareBetSports)

● Positioning: Daily fantasy sports platform (Web3 version of DraftKings).

● Key Feature: Users create on-chain fantasy sports teams and participate in event predictions through token incentives; during the testnet phase, the project collaborated with NFL and MLB for API data, ranking in the Top 5 of the community's "most anticipated mainnet launch projects" through a community vote.

6. Kizzy Mobile (@kizzymobile)

● Positioning: Social betting and mobile entertainment app (Monad native ecosystem).

● Key Feature: Users can make predictions and bets on social media content, earning rewards through on-chain smart contracts; combining Monad's low-cost, high-throughput features, users can instantly claim rewards on-chain by engaging through their mobile phones; a significant practical case of ecosystem integration between real-life and blockchain.

5.4.4 Community Culture and Chain Games

1. Nad.fun (@naddotfun)

● Positioning: Meme Coin Launchpad (Monad version of Pumpfun).

● Key Feature: Supports users in issuing custom Meme coins, featuring built-in "PVP trading competition"; deeply integrated with the Monad community's "meme culture" (frequent issuance of mascot coins like molandak and chog), setting a community hype record during the testnet with a single coin's 1000x price surge within 24 hours.

2. Fantasy (@fantasy_top_)

● Endorsement: Winner of the "Best Chain Game Award" at the Monad Madness Hackathon.

● Positioning: On-chain card-based competitive game.

● Highlight: Combining NFT cards with a DeFi staking mechanism, users can obtain whitelist NFTs through competitions; with over 50,000 users breaking through in the first week of the testnet launch, it is a core project in the ecosystem combining "GameFi + DeFi".

6.  Community Culture and Builder Incentives

6.1 For Builders: Full-Stack Empowerment and First Mover Opportunity

Monad's core strategy is "Builders First," distinguishing itself from traditional public chains oriented towards investors. It integrates "funds-resources-technology-traffic" to form an integrated support system, creating a "Founder Magnet" effect to provide early-stage projects with a low-competition, high-growth development environment. This is also a key factor in the rapid expansion of its ecosystem.

6.1.1 Full-Cycle Support: "Hands-On Guidance" from Concept to Implementation

To lower the barrier of entry for developers, Monad has built a comprehensive support system covering the full project lifecycle, deeply integrating the native-driven plan into builder services:

● Fund and Resource Alignment: Through the "Foundry Plan," it integrates capital resources, market channels, and product strategy guidance to help projects progress from the conceptual stage to Product-Market Fit (PMF). For example, connecting early-stage DeFi projects with institutional capital from Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, etc.

● Technical Support: Providing a complete EVM-compatible toolchain, SDKs, and developer documentation to ensure "zero-cost migration" for Ethereum developers. At the same time, in collaboration with Mach Accelerator, evm/accathon, and other organizations, specialized accelerators are launched to match teams with senior mentors in distributed systems, smart contract optimization, and other areas to address technical bottlenecks.

● Traffic and Exposure Activation: Hosting "Monad Madness" hackathons (with a prize pool of up to a million US dollars), focusing on high-performance public chain adaptation scenarios (such as high-frequency trading, real-time chain games), attracting hundreds of teams worldwide to participate, with winning projects receiving community traffic and ecosystem resource support.

6.1.2 Core Attraction: Technological Dividends and First-Mover Advantage Stacking

The choice of Monad by builders is fundamentally a mutual recognition of "technical performance" and "ecosystem opportunity":

● Technical Performance Dividend: The "MonadBFT Consensus + Optimistic Parallel EVM" architecture, based on full EVM compatibility, achieves sub-second finality and a throughput target of 10,000+ TPS, supporting scenarios such as high-frequency trading, complex DeFi, real-time chain games, which are difficult for Ethereum to sustain.

● Early Ecosystem First-mover Opportunity: Referring to the cases of Magic Eden and Tensor leveraging the early rise of the Solana ecosystem, Monad developers generally see the value of "Mainnet Front-loading." During the initial launch of the mainnet, there is less traffic competition, giving projects the opportunity to quickly occupy the entrance to a niche market (such as becoming the first order book DEX in the ecosystem or the first liquidity staking platform), and even defining the market standards. This "first-mover advantage" is hard to come by in mature ecosystems (such as Ethereum or Solana).

6.2 For Community Users: Refined Operation and Inclusive Co-building

Monad did not confine itself to "developer services" but, through refined user operation and an inclusive community strategy, it built consensus among users, even transforming "doubters" into community members, creating a unique community vitality.

6.2.1 Monad Card: Peer-to-Peer Activation of Core Users and FOMO Effect

During the 2025 ecosystem operation period, the Monad team launched the "Monad Card" operation, becoming a key point of community explosion:

● Precisely Selected Core Group: The team manually selected around 5,000 influential users (including blockchain OGs, developers, KOLs, investors, etc.) out of over 10,000 X (formerly Twitter) accounts and granted them exclusive Monad Cards on a peer-to-peer basis to strengthen their identity recognition;

● Nomination Mechanism Triggering FOMO: Cardholders could nominate others, creating a layered diffusion effect. Non-cardholders actively participated in the testnet interaction and project feedback to qualify, driving a threefold increase in community activity, significantly enhancing testnet user retention;

● Inclusive Strategy to Convert Doubters: The team intentionally included critics and skeptics in the card issuance scope, leading them to shift from "external skepticism" to "internal suggestions" due to identity recognition. They even joined governance discussions, achieving "reducing opposition, expanding consensus."

6.2.2 Community Tension and Transparent Communication

There is still a "tension between enthusiastic anticipation and rational skepticism" in the current Monad community, but this tension has become a driving force for community activity:

● Supporter Perspective: Acknowledging its "EVM compatibility + high performance" combination, they believe it is the next-generation public chain benchmark that "addresses Solana's compatibility shortcomings and breaks through Ethereum's performance bottleneck";

● Skeptic Perspective: Focusing on the mainnet launch progress, the efficiency of the massive funding utilization, and the potential centralization issues caused by validator hardware requirements.

● Team Response: Maintain transparent communication through regular release of technical reports (such as the RaptorCast paper, Testnet-2 progress), monthly AMAs, public validator rules, etc., gradually building community trust.

6.3 Summary: Bi-Directional Ecosystem Growth Logic

The core of the Monad ecosystem lies in the bi-directional strategy of being "builder-friendly and user-focused": providing full-cycle support and a tech-first dual incentive for builders, while designing meticulous operational mechanisms and an inclusive community atmosphere for users. This strategy not only avoids the risk of "heavy technology, light ecosystem" spinning its wheels but also steers clear of the short-term trap of "heavy hype, light service." By solidifying both "hard power" (developer empowerment) and "soft power" (user consensus), it constructs long-term growth certainty, distinguishing itself significantly from public chains relying solely on capital or technological narratives.

Reference Links:

· Monad: Bringing Back The EVM - ASXN Daily

· https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.20692

· #73- Unpacking MonadBFT: Fast, Responsive, Fork-Resistant, Streamlined Consensuschorus.one/articles/solving-blockchains-transaction-bottleneck-how-monad-revolutionizes-evm-transaction-processing

· https://paragraph.com/@seedclubhq/inside-the-ecosystem-strategy-thats-turning-monad-into-cryptos-founder-magnet

· https://mirror.xyz/100y.eth/7_h6gYxMp118ReqlLT-AJ9m59l5geBpmyjDrBIiU3yo

· https://www.digitaltoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=553932

· https://www.digitaltoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=588320

This article is contributed content and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.

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