About Groundbreaking Tech and Its Purpose

Monad is an EVM-compatible, high-performance L1 blockchain with a throughput of up to 10,000 transactions per second, offering instant finalization through one-second blocks.

This groundbreaking technology is achieved by combining innovations such as Parallel Execution, MonadDB, MonadBFT, Deferred Execution, and Shared Mempool.

The main advantage over other networks lies in the underlying technology of "Parallel Execution", which allows two or more transactions to be executed simultaneously. For example, while Solana already uses this technology, it requires its own virtual machine and programming language. In contrast, Monad leverages a high-performance database known as "MonadDB", which enables parallel operations while maintaining full compatibility with EVM.

The network addresses the scalability problem while remaining decentralized and secure by utilizing a proprietary “Monad BFT” (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) consensus mechanism. This mechanism quickly validates transactions even in the presence of malicious validators by employing a pipelined two-phase HotStuff approach, featuring optimistic responsiveness with linear communication overhead in typical scenarios.

In the event of a leader timeout, the algorithm incorporates quadratic complexity, which helps maintain network stability and prevent flaws, allowing transactions to proceed smoothly and quickly.

“Deferred Execution” is another important feature of Monad's consensus mechanism, playing a crucial role in the transaction processing system. It is a unique feature that separates transaction processing from the consensus mechanism, enhancing the efficiency of the consensus process.

With deferred execution, transactions in the shared mempool can be executed in the current block while concurrently being validated by the consensus mechanism. This means that validators can start executing transactions before reaching a consensus on their validity.

The “Shared Mempool” is a core component that holds pending transactions before they are included in a block. It allows network participants to access and validate transactions, ensuring that only valid and authorized transactions are added to the blockchain. The Shared Mempool also facilitates the coordination and synchronization of transactions across the network, enhancing the overall efficiency and reliability of the consensus mechanism.

To summarize, Monad's technical innovations - combining Parallel Execution, MonadDB, MonadBFT, Deferred Execution, and Shared Mempool - address key transaction processing challenges. As a result, the network achieves an unprecedented speed of transaction processing, opens new opportunities for scaling, and provides a high level of security while maintaining compatibility with all DAPPs and developer tools from EVM. This justifiably earns Monad the label of "groundbreaking" technology.

Attention from investors and the community

Above the project's technological advances, Monad has attracted the attention of major investors by raising the largest round of this year in April 2024, totaling $225M from Tier-1 venture capital funds such as Paradigm, Electric Capital, DragonFly, and others.

Big headlines immediately followed this, and the project attracted a huge influx of new web3 users and developers. Thus, more and more different projects started to appear in the ecosystem, and the community began to grow.

Community building is a crucial aspect of project management, as it serves to enhance credibility and trust, facilitate valuable feedback, drive organic growth, and foster a collaborative and supportive environment. By prioritizing community engagement and fostering strong relationships with their users, projects can increase their chances of long-term success in the competitive blockchain and crypto space.

Monad excels at this, as it has an extremely tight-knit and active community:

• An open and active team that organizes weekly AMA sessions, various quests, games, and events (there is even a calendar for them), and monitors audience activity in chat rooms so that only the best are eligible for privileges.

• A community of artists and web3 users who are involved in the ecosystem, create content, support the project on social networks, and communicate with each other.

• A well-developed lore and history of the ecosystem with its characters (e.g., Molandak, Chog, Moyaki, Mouch, Anago, Bill Monday) additionally bring special context to communication between users and encourage them to be as involved in the ecosystem as possible.

The place where the main interaction between community members takes place is Discord, which was created at the end of 2022. All this time, the ecosystem has been gathering its user base bit by bit, without having a final product for public access in the form of a network.

Ecosystem overview

An extensive analysis of the ecosystem has been conducted, and a comprehensive list of all the projects currently present within it has been compiled. Furthermore, these projects have been meticulously categorized to facilitate seamless navigation and enhance comprehension of the ecosystem as a whole.

The ecosystem currently has 85 projects from a wide variety of categories ranging from “DeFi” protocols to “RWA”, “P2P”, and “Prediction Markets”.

Such a number of builders and projects before the release of the network to the public has not been collected by any project yet.

In order to thoroughly analyze the obtained information and draw comprehensive conclusions, several diagrams reflecting certain regularities and peculiarities of the ecosystem have been prepared:

Based on this chart, we can see that there are two leading categories that have a huge lead over the rest. These are “DEX/AMM/PERPS” and “NFT.

The large number of projects in the “NFT” category shows the high level of involvement and cohesion of the user base in the ecosystem. Nevertheless, the prevalence of “NFT” projects in the network is quite common, which is not the case with the next category.

The category “DEX/AMM/PERPS” has the largest number of projects in its list, which is not typical for every network. Based on this data and an understanding of Monad mechanisms, we can conclude that quite a few developers see good potential in the network for deploying their DEX/AMM protocol. We attribute this to the huge speed of processed transactions per second, as well as the extremely small commission within the network.

As illustrated in the accompanying pie chart, the “DeFi” and “NFT” segments are currently the most prominent, accounting for 66% of the total ecosystem weight.

The "DEX/AMM/PERPS" category represents 25.9% of the total ecosystem weight, while the sum of all categories from the “DeFi“ segment accounts for as much as 40.1%. This includes categories such as "DEX/AMM/PERPS", "Yield aggregators", "Liquidity providing", "Lending", and "Liquid Staking”. This indicates a considerable level of interest among developers in this particular segment, which is also likely to facilitate its growth and development.

At the moment, there are developers in the Monad ecosystem who build their product natively on this network, i.e. use it as a foundation for their project.

And there are also projects that already have their product on other networks but are going to add Monad to the list of supported networks.

Analyzing this diagram, we can see quite an interesting picture:

Not counting the projects from the NFT category, which will obviously all be on Monad, there are 19 projects that have chosen Monad as their main network and 47 projects that are only integrating Monad with other networks in their product.

Also, in categories such as "DEX/AMM/PERPS" and "Liquid Staking", the ratio of native to non-native protocols is nearly equal, or native protocols outnumber the non-native ones overall. We attribute this to Monad' innovative technologies, which allows builders to maximize the potential of their products, thanks to the network's TPS count, as well as provide the best user experience thanks to very low fees.

Considering that the network is still in closed Devnet, this is a very good result, which shows a huge credit of trust from the community of developers to the Monad network and a willingness to fully depend on it.

After the graphs were analyzed and the information compiled, it was concluded that the main categories attracting developers and the community to Monad are “DeFi” and “NFT”. In the DeFi segment, most projects fall under the “DEX/AMM/PERPS” category, due to the network's technological advantages, which unlock the potential of such protocols and enhance user experience. Additionally, many developers have high expectations for this network and are using it as a foundation for their future products.

Best projects in Monad Ecosystem

In this part of the article, a selection of the best projects built exclusively on Monad as their main network has been prepared. The projects have been selected primarily based on the uniqueness of their ideas and the extent to which Monad's technological advantages, such as high throughput and low transaction fees, can fully unlock their potential. Support among partners/foundations and current social traction were also considered, but these factors were given less emphasis, as most of the projects are in a very early stage and lack a large track record or detailed descriptions of their mechanics.

Kuru

The first DEX with a CLOB-based on-chain order book. With the arrival of Monad, CLOB order book models will become easy to implement due to the technical innovation of the network and will drive AMM out of the market.

Raised $2M, led by Electric Capital, Tier 4 funds, and promising angels (Monad CEO + Jarry Xiao & Eugene Chen from Eclipse Labs).

At the moment, the project has no description of the mechanics in the public domain, but based on the other inputs, we can already say that the project has the potential to become one of the largest DEX platforms on Monad.

NitroFTL

DEX with their proprietary FTL (Fused Trade Ledger) architecture, which allows the use of swaps and DeFi protocols (Lending, Borrowing) tools deployed in a single LP pool. In the LP pool, tokens are distributed into bins, each of which has some amount of stablecoins and tradable coins. Monad enables the fullest possible unlocking of the project's architectural potential, drawing on its technical expertise. This allows the project to enhance capital efficiency, optimize commission structures, and eliminate issues related to volatile losses.

Monadex

AMM DEX employs an order book-based constant product automated market maker (CPAMM) mechanism, which enables LP providers to offer one-way liquidity. Additionally, it incorporates fee tiers in pools and two-tiered pools, whereby pools are created based on the available LP tokens.

aPriori

aPriori is the MEV infrastructure and liquid staking protocol built for the parallel execution era and natively implemented for Monad.

Raised $10M from Tier 1-2 funds at a $100M valuation during the Seed round, and Binance also participated in the fundraising at the end of July, though the details remain undisclosed.

Currently, the project lacks detailed documentation on its operational mechanisms. However, based on the available information, support from major funds, and social traction, it can be said that the project is at least worthy of attention.

KINTSU

Liquid Staking Protocol whose mission is to enhance the scalability and potential of Proof-of-Stake blockchains by allowing users to stake their assets and receive LSTs in return. These LSTs are composed of the blockchain's native gas tokens, enabling users to earn yield on their deposits, support network security, and use these LSTs as payment for gas fees.

Raised $4M, primarily from Tier 2-Tier 3 funds and major players like TSG and Animoca Brands.

Monad Pad

Monad Pad is the first launchpad platform on the Monad network. Its mission is to create an inclusive environment that supports founders, investors, and collectors within the digital assets and DeFi space. Monad Pad offers a comprehensive set of tools, including a presale launchpad, Monad utility tools, and the $MPAD token.

Raised $945K from Tier 3 - Tier 4 funds, which is quite a good result for a native launchpad platform.

Demask Finance

Demask Finance is an on-chain Automated Market Maker (AMM) platform aimed at boosting liquidity in the NFT market by enabling the trading of NFTs and ERC20 tokens. It allows users to establish liquidity pools with NFT-token pairs, offering a fixed price for instant trades, which helps mitigate the common liquidity challenges in the NFT space. Additionally, Demask tackles issues related to NFT price consensus, counterfeiting, and high transaction fees by providing fast, secure transactions with low costs.

HaHa Wallet

First Native Monad EVM Smart Wallet with better rates than major competitors like MetaMask/Phantom and total portfolio count.

Predicto!

The first prediction market exclusively on Monad. With the current "Prediction Markets" narrative gaining momentum on TON, this project has a strong chance to build its user base and become the first major “PolyMarket” equivalent on the Monad network.

Conclusion

Monad has reengineered the EVM execution system to enable the parallel execution of non-overlapping transactions. Additionally, the team has adjusted the integration system for the blockchain's execution layer to run parallel to consensus.

Monad layers further benefit from optimizations such as parallel execution, deferred execution, a high-performance consensus mechanism, and a fully custom Monad Database. While pipelining is already implemented in non-EVM blockchains like Sui, Solana, and Aptos, Monad is adapting this technology to be compatible with EVM.

Already, money and attention from top investors are being directed not only toward supporting Monad as a network but also toward ecosystem projects within it. The same goes for the community that has gathered around the project. It is truly impressive in its activity, creativity, and cohesion, thanks to the team's highly effective community-building efforts.

The network's ecosystem is remarkably large, considering it is still in the closed DevNet stage. It encompasses more than 85 unique projects across various categories, from the DeFi segment to NFTs and Prediction Markets. A vast number of developers are trying in every possible way to connect their products with Monad - some are adding it to the list of supported networks, while others are using it as their main and only network.

Monad is currently attracting a great deal of attention from all corners of the industry, and the key question that needs to be answered is whether Monad will be able to keep the community gathered around its ecosystem, take some of the liquidity from ETH, and migrate it to an on-chain environment. Developers will be able to ensure this if a number of factors are met, such as:

• A successful, problem-free launch of the network into the public and the demonstration of the network's technical innovations in practice.

• Providing users with a decent user experience in interesting ecosystem projects that will attract users by offering them new solutions that solve current problems or improve existing mechanisms in the sphere.

• Announcing and implementing a major airdrop farming campaign that will incentivize users to actively interact with the ecosystem.

If these conditions are met, developers will likely be able to create a promising L1 that could attract significant liquidity away from EVM networks, deliver a superior user experience, and provide more advanced tools compared to those available in competing networks.