A superstar project, which received tens of millions of dollars in financing, led by Paradigm and Coinbase. Keywords include modularization, public chain, and viral marketing. Almost all public chain projects that participated in the early stage of the bull market will obtain excess returns.
At present, Monad is the largest single financing in the history of blockchain, with a current valuation of 6 billion.
Second: The project party itself is a giant market maker. Everyone in the blockchain field knows that there is no doubt that the project party itself is rich, has connections, and knows a certain amount of marketing, so it can attract so many investment institutions and bigwigs to follow.
01
What is a Monad?
Monad is a new Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible layer 1 blockchain that aims to improve the entire Ethereum ecosystem; as well as the decentralized computing platform.
Monad provides a throughput several orders of magnitude higher than any existing smart contract blockchain, supporting 10,000 smart contract transactions per second (tps) through algorithmic improvements to virtual machine design and Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus mechanism.
Outstanding technical solutions are making Monad stand out in the field of AltVM and become another competitive "Ethereum killer". Obviously, Monad, which has extremely high expectations in both technical and narrative aspects, is also becoming a key bet project in the AltVM track for many top investment institutions.
02
How to understand "parallel EVM"?
“Parallel EVM” is essentially a reform of the order in which transactions are executed in the EVM environment.
In the classic EVM environment, each transaction is executed in sequence (the most intuitive example: when a user submits multiple transactions, the later transactions will not be processed until the earlier transactions are confirmed). We can temporarily call this execution mechanism "single-line EVM".
The "single-line EVM" design ensures that transactions and smart contracts can be executed in a deterministic order, making it easier to manage and predict the state of the blockchain, which helps to ensure the security of the network. However, it also limits the transaction execution efficiency of the network and restricts the operational space for expansion on the Layer 1 single layer.
The "Parallel EVM" proposed by Monad hopes to break this shackles. This mechanism will partition or group all pending transactions, and then rely on scheduling algorithms to effectively manage the synchronous processing of transactions in each partition or group. Its ultimate goal is to allow multiple independent transactions to be executed in parallel, thereby greatly improving the execution efficiency of transactions on the Layer 1 single layer.
Monad officials have given many vivid examples of the difference between "parallel EVM" and "single-line EVM", such as the laundry example in the figure below.
Suppose someone has four piles of clothes to wash. Each pile of laundry needs to go through four steps from being thrown into the washing machine to being put into the closet: washing, drying, folding, and storing.
Under the "single-row EVM" mechanism, since each operation (corresponding to each transaction) needs to be executed in sequence, the four piles of clothes must go through four steps in sequence, which requires a total of 16 time units.
Under the "parallel EVM" mechanism, since each independent operation (corresponding to each independent transaction) can be executed at the same time, when a pile of clothes enters the next operation, the next pile of clothes can immediately enter the previous operation, which only takes 7 time units in total, and the efficiency is improved by more than 1 times.
03
The Monad Ecosystem
Since the Monad blockchain has not yet launched on mainnet, its ecosystem is still developing. As of February 2024, more than 80 independent protocols and dApps have committed to building on the protocol. As the mainnet launch date approaches, this number is expected to be closer to 150 or 200.
One of the first major players to integrate with Monad is LayerZero, an industry-leading protocol designed to enable cross-platform messaging and interoperability across a wide range of chains and system types. LayerZero’s integration with Monad will allow for seamless interconnection with 50 to 60 (and growing) of the most prominent blockchains in the space.
Additionally, the integration will allow sending data to Monad via the LayerZero endpoint for uses related to governance voting, loan contract calls, arbitrary data exchange, etc. The integration will also allow swapping of ERC-20 and native Gas tokens as wrapped assets on Monad, while more utility tools connected to LayerZero will be released in the coming months.
The Monad-LayerZero collaboration marks a significant milestone for both projects and will help alleviate the cross-chain interoperability challenges that exist in today’s current blockchain landscape.
Significantly, Monad also recently announced a partnership with Pyth Network. This will allow Pyth to use Monad’s highly scalable, low-gas design to provide more reliable price data. Note that more frequent price feed updates mean more accurate data, which in turn means more efficient DeFi.
04
Monad Advantages
As a next-generation smart contract platform, Monad has several advantages:
1. High transaction throughput: Monad can process up to 10,000 transactions per second, far exceeding many existing blockchains. This high throughput is very suitable for application scenarios that require fast transaction processing.
2. Parallel execution: Monad uses parallel execution technology to process multiple transactions at the same time. Compared with traditional sequential execution methods, this improves network efficiency and reduces latency.
3. Instant Finality: Monad uses the pipeline consensus mechanism MonadBFT, which enables transactions to be completed instantly within each block, thereby providing faster and more reliable transaction settlement.
4. Ethereum compatibility: Monad is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), making it easier for developers to migrate existing Ethereum applications, and users can also use familiar tools and interfaces to make the transition.
5. Optimized scalability: Monad's innovative architecture, including parallel execution and pipelined consensus, is designed to solve scalability issues. This enables the platform to support a growing number of transactions and users.
6. Reduced operating costs: The efficiency of the Monad system may reduce transaction fees, making it an economically attractive platform for users and developers.
05
team
Keone is a software developer and blockchain researcher. Prior to joining Monad, he worked at Jump Trading for eight years, where he led an HFT team. In 2021, Keone joined Jump's crypto division and led a team of engineers focused on blockchain research and dapp development.
James is an expert in systems engineering and low latency optimization. Prior to joining Monad, he spent eight years at Jump Trading, where he built an ultra-low latency trading system responsible for tens of billions of notional daily volume across major futures markets.
Eunice is a product and technology leader with a background in traditional finance and fintech. She holds a degree in computer science from MIT, worked in trading at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, led product teams building enterprise trading systems at Broadway Technology, and led the payments and licensing infrastructure team at Shutterstock.
Keone, James, and Eunice are the co-founders of Monad; however, their journey has been shaped by a collective effort, with numerous engineers, business developers, researchers, and consultants all playing a vital role in shaping Monad's future.
06
Monad Financing
On April 9, Monad Labs, the developer of the Layer1 public chain Monad, announced the completion of a $225 million financing round led by Paradigm, with participation from Electric Capital, eGirl Capital, Amber Group, Animoca Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, GSR Ventures, Superscrypt, Wintermute Ventures, etc.
Monad's financing round is the largest cryptocurrency financing so far in 2024, and the investment institutions are a star-studded group of investors.
07
Monad Roadmap
February 2022: Monad is founded in New York City
February 2023: Monad receives $19 million in funding from several leading crypto VCs
September 2023: Monad documentation is released, detailing the architecture of the Monad blockchain for the first time
Q3 2024: Monad testnet launch
Q4 2024: Monad mainnet launch
Although Monad’s protocol has yet to launch on mainnet, it’s difficult to determine its exact roadmap for the future. Nevertheless, the platform will likely launch its mainnet by the end of 2024, meaning its direction will be clearer by then.
08
In summary
Monad represents a blockchain with very high long-term potential. Combining decentralization, extreme scalability, and compatibility with Ethereum, it is a disruptor in the blockchain space. Specifically, its parallel execution and superscalar pipeline framework, as well as other cutting-edge innovations, put Monad in a favorable position technologically.
Monad’s ability to reach 10,000 transactions per second is an extremely strong benchmark compared to many currently existing chains. Because 10,000 transactions per second is the starting point for the network, Monad can theoretically scale to hundreds of thousands of TPS in the coming years.
Nonetheless, Monad faces a difficult adoption challenge to gain significant market share among large, already established competitors within the first year or two of its development.
Instead, the platform has already established solid foundational partnerships with strong partners such as LayerZero, Pyth Network, Wormhole, etc., which indicates that its 80+ ecosystem will grow significantly over time, with an estimated 150 projects expected to be built on the platform at mainnet launch.
However, with many large Layer 2 platforms launching in the first half of 2024 (plus many existing Layer 2s), this may mean that many Layer 1 platforms will face difficulties in gaining adoption.
Regardless, it’s clear that Monad has the potential to be an industry-changing blockchain.
Used to create decentralized high-performance trading platforms, trading systems and various practical tools.