Monad Blockchain: A Deep Dive into Features and Performance

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Monad is rapidly emerging as a significant player among Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 chains. While many competitors have either compromised on full compatibility for performance or offered compatibility without meaningful differentiation, Monad aims to deliver the best of both worlds: true EVM equivalence with substantial improvements in throughput and efficiency.

This review examines whether Monad achieves this balance, exploring its preservation of the Ethereum developer experience and its technical innovations that could attract value from Ethereum while enabling new use cases beyond what Ethereum L1 or rollups can handle.

Although still in testnet phase, Monad has garnered significant attention for its architecture, growing ecosystem, and developer momentum. It stands as one of the most anticipated L1 mainnet launches of 2025.

Core Innovations and Technical Architecture

Monad represents a high-performance, Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 blockchain built from the ground up in C++ and Rust. It delivers 10,000 transactions per second (TPS), 0.5-second block times, and approximately 1-second single-slot finality with near-zero gas fees while maintaining full EVM equivalence. This means existing Ethereum smart contracts and development tools work seamlessly without modification.

Revolutionary Technical Features

Monad introduces several groundbreaking architectural innovations that enable its performance advantages:

MonadBFT Consensus: A custom Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus mechanism optimized from HotStuff with pipelined rounds and speculative single-round finality. This ensures network security even with up to one-third of validators acting maliciously.

Asynchronous Execution: Unlike Ethereum's sequential processing, Monad decouples consensus and execution, allowing multiple blocks to be processed simultaneously across different stages. This eliminates idle time and maximizes resource utilization.

Parallel Execution: Transactions independent of each other are executed simultaneously across multiple threads and virtual machines, while still preserving commit order for compatibility. This dramatically increases throughput without sacrificing determinism.

MonadDB: A custom state database based on Patricia Trie that emphasizes low-RAM usage and fast access. This specialized database reduces hardware requirements while supporting asynchronous operations and high TPS.

RaptorCast: A streamlined broadcast protocol that accelerates block propagation among validators, enhancing network synchronization efficiency.

Development Milestones and Funding

Monad has demonstrated impressive progress through its development phases. The devnet phase showcased internal performance reaching 10,000 TPS during testing. The public testnet launched in February 2025 with approximately 57 validators, over 1.5 million unique addresses, 32 million+ transactions, and 564,000+ contracts with average fees around 0.01 MON.

The project has secured substantial backing of $225-248 million from top-tier investors including Paradigm, Dragonfly, Coinbase, and Electric Capital, providing strong financial foundation for continued development and ecosystem growth.

How Monad Achieves High Performance

Monad's architecture represents a fundamental redesign of core blockchain components while maintaining Ethereum compatibility. The system optimizes consensus mechanisms, transaction processing, and state storage to deliver exceptional performance without excessive resource demands.

Consensus Mechanism: MonadBFT

MonadBFT implements a pipelined approach where during each consensus round, the current leader proposes a block while simultaneously voting to finalize the previous one. This overlapping process enables speculative one-round finality and achieves complete finality within approximately one second. The system includes tail-fork resistance, preventing valid blocks from being excluded from the canonical chain due to MEV manipulation.

The network parameters support around 500ms round times with finality achieved in approximately one second. The Byzantine fault tolerance accommodates up to 33% malicious participants, while the testnet currently hosts 100-200 active validators, positioning the network as robustly decentralized for this development stage.

Execution Model Advantages

Ethereum's synchronous execution model requires that each block's transactions be proposed, ordered through consensus, and fully executed before proceeding to the next block. This creates inherent delays, especially across global validator networks where latency accumulates.

Monad's asynchronous execution model allows block processing stages—proposal, voting, execution, and finalization—to proceed in parallel across multiple blocks. This pipelined design keeps validator hardware constantly utilized, dramatically improving computational and network resource efficiency.

The parallel execution engine analyzes incoming transactions to detect哪些不影响重叠状态部分，允许独立交易跨多个处理线程同时执行。执行后，结果按以太坊兼容的线性顺序排序和提交，保持完全确定性。

State Management with MonadDB

MonadDB represents a custom-built database system specifically designed for blockchain state management at high speeds. Unlike Ethereum clients that use general-purpose databases, MonadDB is optimized for Ethereum's state model while supporting asynchronous operations and high TPS.

The database stores data more efficiently without unnecessary layers, effectively utilizes modern SSD storage, and safely handles multiple readers and writers simultaneously. This allows consensus, execution, and RPC services to access state without conflicts or delays, enabling high performance without requiring expensive high-end hardware.

Transaction Processing Lifecycle

A typical Monad transaction begins when a user submits a signed transaction through a wallet or application interface. Similar to Ethereum, wallets use eth_estimateGas to calculate gas limits, and users select gas prices in MON tokens.

After submission to an RPC node, the transaction undergoes validity checks (signature, nonce, gas limits) before propagation to leader nodes through a multi-stage mempool process. Once included in a block, the transaction moves through Proposed → Voted → Finalized stages typically within 1-2 seconds due to Monad's pipelined consensus flow.

After finalization, nodes execute the transaction using parallel optimistic execution and commit results in Ethereum-compatible order. Users can confirm outcomes through standard Ethereum RPC calls.

Hardware Requirements and Accessibility

Monad maintains accessible hardware requirements for validators and full nodes:

Compared to other networks, Monad strikes a balance between performance and accessibility. Ethereum nodes have lighter CPU requirements but substantial storage needs without multi-core utilization. Solana validators demand heavier compute resources (16-24 core CPUs, 256+ GB RAM, 1 Gbps+ bandwidth). Monad's efficient use of modern multi-core CPUs through parallel execution keeps validator costs reasonable while delivering high performance.

Ecosystem Development and Project Landscape

The Monad ecosystem blends native applications with Ethereum-originated platforms, leveraging full EVM compatibility. Despite operating in testnet, it features a diverse landscape with over 100 active DApps, 99 validators, and 1 billion+ transactions processed since the February 2025 testnet launch.

User adoption and on-chain liquidity are scaling rapidly. Native liquid staking protocol Puffer Finance manages a $1.4 billion TVL, while airdrop campaigns and onboarding initiatives drive broader ecosystem engagement.

Cross-chain Infrastructure and Bridging

Monad's cross-chain capabilities are supported by several established bridging solutions:

Decentralized Exchange Ecosystem

The DEX landscape includes both Ethereum veterans and native innovations:

Lending and Borrowing Platforms

DeFi lending services include:

Trading and Derivatives Platforms

Advanced trading capabilities are emerging through:

Wallet Infrastructure

User access is supported through multiple wallet options:

Liquid Staking Solutions

Liquid staking represents a significant component of Monad's DeFi ecosystem:

Gaming and Entertainment Applications

The gaming sector shows promising development:

Native and Migrated Applications

The ecosystem includes both native innovations and established projects migrated from other chains:

This diverse project landscape demonstrates strong early metrics in TVL and transaction volume, positioning Monad favorably for its mainnet debut later in 2025.

MON Token Economics and Utility

MON serves as Monad's native token, forming the core of its staking and fee economy. During the testnet phase, MON tokens are distributed through faucets and ecosystem engagement activities without monetary value, used primarily for gas fees and testnet DApp interactions.

Several DeFi protocols on testnet already integrate MON for simulated staking and yield experiments. Platforms like Kintsu and Puffer Finance enable testnet staking of MON into derivative tokens used across various applications.

Mainnet Token Utility

Upon mainnet launch, MON will serve several critical functions:

As the network transitions to mainnet, MON will become central to securing consensus and facilitating core ecosystem functions, with token economics designed to support sustainable network operations.

Performance Outlook and Future Potential

Monad demonstrates significant potential as a high-performance, Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 capable of scaling EVM workloads without sacrificing decentralization or developer experience. Its architectural innovations in asynchronous execution, parallel processing, and specialized database management distinguish it from both rollups and established L1s.

The project has built an impressive ecosystem attracting both native builders and established applications from Ethereum and other chains. For a chain still in testnet, the traction in user adoption, validator participation, and DeFi activity is remarkable, particularly with over $1.4 billion TVL in testnet staking and growing developer engagement.

As the mainnet approaches, key indicators to monitor include:

The current outlook remains positive, with Monad entering its mainnet phase with strong technical foundations, substantial funding, and growing community momentum. 👉 Explore advanced blockchain strategies

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Monad fully compatible with Ethereum smart contracts?

Yes, Monad maintains complete EVM equivalence, meaning every EVM opcode behaves identically to Ethereum. The development team has replayed Ethereum's full state history confirming byte-for-byte consistency, ensuring contracts execute exactly as they would on Ethereum mainnet.

What consensus mechanism does Monad implement?

Monad utilizes MonadBFT, a Proof-of-Stake based Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus protocol optimized for high throughput and approximately one-second finality. The network supports 10,000 TPS, 500ms block times, and fast finality through its parallel execution engine and specialized consensus design.

How can developers start building on Monad today?

Developers can access Monad's public testnet through Alchemy or QuickNode endpoints, claim testnet MON tokens via faucets, and immediately begin deploying contracts and interacting with dApps. The development experience mirrors Ethereum using familiar tools like Solidity, Remix, Foundry, and MetaMask.

Do gas fees work similarly to Ethereum?

Monad employs a fee mechanism similar to Ethereum's EIP-1559 model, using the MON token for gas payments with dynamic base fees and priority tip support. The near-zero fee structure combined with high throughput creates significantly lower transaction costs compared to Ethereum mainnet.

What hardware is required to run a Monad node?

Running a validator or full node requires a 16-core processor at 4.5 GHz+, 32 GB RAM, 2×2 TB NVMe SSDs (with one dedicated to MonadDB), and 100 Mbps internet connectivity. These requirements balance performance with accessibility compared to other high-throughput networks.

When is the mainnet launch expected?

The mainnet is planned for launch later in 2025, following successful testnet operation and ecosystem development. The exact timeline will depend on network stability, security audits, and ecosystem readiness indicators.