Layer 1 blockchain
Monad ticker MON
Summary
Monad's public mainnet launched on 24 November 2025 and is secured by proof of stake. MonadBFT, Category Labs' pipelined leader-based BFT protocol, orders blocks: each round a stake-scheduled leader sends its block to validators over RaptorCast, validators vote, and votes from over two-thirds of stake weight are aggregated into a quorum certificate with BLS signatures. Under asynchronous execution, validators agree on order without executing; every node then executes the block, and each proposal carries the state root from three blocks earlier so a diverging node is caught. Execution is optimistic and parallel: transactions run concurrently, results are committed one by one in block order, and a transaction whose inputs changed is re-run. Contracts are Ethereum Virtual Machine bytecode, and state lives in MonadDb, a database that stores Merkle Patricia Trie nodes directly on SSDs. 3456891323
Design
- System
- Layer 1 blockchainIndependent proof-of-stake layer 1 (mainnet chain ID 143) whose public mainnet launched on 24 November 2025; it does not settle to another chain. It runs Ethereum Virtual Machine bytecode and uses Ethereum's account format, transaction types and JSON-RPC interface, on consensus and execution clients that Category Labs wrote for Monad in Rust and C++ (monad-bft and monad). Those clients are not forks of an Ethereum client. No rollup or channel layer settling to Monad was found.
- Settlement family
- Its own design
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- Each round has one leader, taken from a schedule every validator computes at the start of each epoch (every 50,000 blocks) with a deterministic pseudorandom function over stake weights. Only the top 200 validators by stake join consensus, each with at least 100,000 MON of self-stake and 10,000,000 MON in total; anyone meeting these thresholds can join. The Monad Foundation delegates stake to chosen validators through a program that requires KYC or KYB, a commission cap and 98% uptime. A Foundation post from August 2026 says roughly 200 validators take part.
- Fork choice
- No open weight-based chain selection. A block is Voted once a quorum certificate for it is seen (speculative finality, one 300 ms slot) and Finalized once a certificate on that certificate arrives (two slots). After a failed round the next leader must re-propose the highest tip in the timeout certificate unless over two-thirds of stake sign that they never received it; this is how MonadBFT prevents tail-forking. The docs say a speculatively final block reverts only if its leader equivocated, and a finalized one only through a hard fork.
Qualifications
- Settlement family · Partial. Recorded as other. Monad's own terms: an Ethereum-compatible layer 1 whose consensus client (monad-bft, in Rust) and execution client (monad, in C++) were written by Category Labs for Monad and are not forks of an Ethereum client. It uses Ethereum's account model, address format, transaction types and JSON-RPC interface and runs Ethereum Virtual Machine bytecode. Its execution repository pulls in Ethereum-community libraries (silkpre, ethash, EVMC) plus Ethereum test suites and go-ethereum test data; 2026 releases replaced parts of the silkpre and ethash code with Category Labs' own.
- Finality · Partial. Recorded as other. Monad's own terms: MonadBFT gives speculative finality when a block is Voted (a quorum certificate is seen, one 300 ms slot) and finality when it is Finalized (a certificate on that certificate, two slots, about 600 ms); a block is Verified once a later finalized block carries its delayed state root, three blocks on. The docs say a finalized block cannot be reverted without a hard fork. Automated in-protocol slashing is not implemented, so this committee finality is not backed by bonded MON at risk.
- Slashing · Partial. Monad's staking docs say robust logging provides accountability for slashable offences, but automated in-protocol slashing is not currently implemented, so bonded MON is not yet taken by the protocol for double-signing.
- Deferred execution · Applies. Consensus orders transactions without executing them; execution runs in a separate, lagging stage, and proposals carry the Merkle state root from three blocks back. Users meet three effects: fees are charged on the gas limit, not gas used; reserve-balance rules built around a 10 MON reserve limit what consensus includes and can make some included transactions revert; and an account funded from zero cannot send until the funding transfer is three blocks old.
- Optimistic parallel execution · Applies. Monad's production client executes a block's transactions in parallel optimistically, records each one's inputs, commits results serially in block order and re-executes any transaction whose inputs an earlier one changed, so results always match serial execution; conflicts are judged slot by slot. A Foundation post says Category Labs proved this in Coq. Frequently used contracts are also compiled to native x86-64 code.
- Evm compatibility · Partial. Monad runs Ethereum Virtual Machine bytecode and supports transaction types 0, 1, 2 and 4, with these documented departures: contracts up to 128 KB, some repriced opcodes and precompiles, linear memory pricing capped at 8 MB per transaction, storage warmed and committed in pages of 128 slots since MIP-8, fees charged on the gas limit, no type 3 blob transactions, no global mempool, and full nodes that do not serve arbitrary historical state.
- Tps · Contested. Monad's throughput figures are design capacity or arithmetic from block parameters. They are kept in the classified claims list and are not observed rates.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Scalability and Decentralization Contested
- Gives up
- Low node requirements and, for now, stake-backed penalties. Every node needs a 16-core CPU at 4.5 GHz or more, 32 GB of RAM, two NVMe SSDs and at least 100 Mbit/s on bare metal; only the top 200 validators by stake take part in consensus; the Monad Foundation delegates stake through a program gated by KYC; and automated in-protocol slashing is not implemented.Monad's docs say its north star is making decentralization more powerful and eliminating the perceived tradeoff between decentralization and performance, with intentionally minimal hardware requirements so that anyone may run a node; reading that as both corners at once is contested. The published hardware floor is a high-end desktop, and without automated slashing the stake-at-risk side of the security argument rests on logging and accountability, not on the protocol taking bonded MON.
- Full node at home
- Demanding 710111217Monad lists one hardware profile for full nodes and validators: a 16-core CPU at 4.5 GHz or more, 32 GB of RAM, a 2 TB NVMe SSD for state plus 500 GB for consensus and the operating system, and 100 Mbit/s (300 for validators). Nodes must run on bare metal; cloud machines are not officially supported. A new node starts from a forkpoint and validator list fetched from Monad Foundation storage, then pulls state from validators or a Foundation or Category Labs snapshot, trusting those sources. Full nodes keep only recent state.
- Throughput claims
- Theoretical peak: 10,000 tx/s 1210Theoretical peak; not comparable across chains or with observed load.Design capacity stated on Monad's documentation, read 2026-09-29Not stated with the figure; Monad's node guidance lists a 16-core 4.5 GHz CPU, 32 GB RAM, NVMe SSDs and bare-metal hosting for every node.Monad's facts page gives the figure as 10,000+ and labels it design capacity for typical transactions, not a reading of current demand. No method, transaction mix, benchmark run or measurement window is published on the reviewed pages, so the figure cannot be reproduced. The figure ignores long-run state growth and load made of padding or spam transactions, and it cannot be compared across chains. No observed mainnet transaction rate was reviewed for this profile.
- Theoretical peak: 500,000,000 22024Theoretical peak; not comparable across chains or with observed load.Gas per second: the 150 million gas block limit divided by the 300 ms block time, as Monad's facts page states.Block parameters in force since the MIP-12 hard fork of 23 July 2026This is arithmetic from block parameters, a ceiling, not a measured rate of executed work. The same ceiling applied before MIP-12, when blocks carried up to 200 million gas every 400 ms (Monad's changelog and MIP-12); MIP-12 shortened the block interval without raising it. Monad charges and counts each transaction's gas limit, not the gas it actually uses, so a full block can hold less executed work than the ceiling suggests. Monad reprices some opcodes and prices storage by page, so its gas units cannot be compared with another chain's gas or transaction figures.
Scaling layers
No scaling layer recorded in this profile.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Unknown | Garden, a third-party swap service, settles cross-chain swaps through hashed time-locked contracts that complete on both chains or refund. Monad's protocol registry lists Garden's mainnet contracts as live, and its USDC contract holds code on chain, but Garden's live chain list on 2026-09-29 did not include Monad, so a live swap route is not shown. The protocol has no built-in swap, and no Category Labs or Monad Foundation swap tool is cited. 16272829 |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
| Light clients | Built into the protocolLimited scope | Quorum certificates and delayed state roots: consensus produces what a light client checks, since a block is finalized by a certificate on a certificate from over two-thirds of stake and each proposal carries the state root of a block a few positions earlier; Monad's docs say light clients can then ask full nodes for Merkle proofs of state at that block. Limited: no Monad light client was found, and new nodes start from a forkpoint and validator list downloaded from Monad Foundation storage. 34711 |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Unknown | No payment or state channel layer anchored to Monad was found in the reviewed docs; absence was not verified. |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Ethereum Virtual Machine smart contracts paid in MON, and EIP-7702 delegation (type 4 transactions), which lets an ordinary account run delegated contract code; ERC-4337 entry-point contracts are deployed at listed addresses. These are contract-level spend conditions; an undelegated account signs with a single secp256k1 key. 141819 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | No protocol-level reversible transfer or recovery path was found. Smart accounts (Safe and ERC-4337 contracts are deployed) and EIP-7702 delegation are building blocks that could host recovery rules, but no live mainnet recovery implementation was reviewed. 1419 |
| Rollups | Unknown | No rollup or validium settling to Monad was found in the reviewed docs; absence was not verified. |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | Established in the ecosystemUniswap v4, Curve, PancakeSwap v3 | Uniswap's own deployment list gives Uniswap v4 contract addresses on Monad (chain 143), Monad's token page links Uniswap, Curve and PancakeSwap pools for bridged assets, and DeFiLlama lists these exchanges on Monad along with others, including the Kuru order book. Operators, audits and liquidity depth were not reviewed. 153034 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | Established in the ecosystemUSDC (Circle) | Circle's USDC contract list gives a Monad mainnet address, and Circle's transfer protocol lists Monad as domain 15. Tether's supported-protocol list does not include Monad; the USDT0 token on Monad arrives over LayerZero, and Monad's token page lists other dollar tokens, such as AUSD and USD1, as bridged. 15313233 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | DeFiLlama lists Mento (in its algorithmic-stablecoin category) and Reservoir (a collateralized debt protocol) on Monad; their designs, collateral and peg record on Monad were not reviewed. 34 |
| Bridges | Established in the ecosystemCircle CCTP (USDC), LayerZero (Stargate), Chainlink CCIP (Transporter), Hyperlane (Nexus), Wormhole NTT (Monad Bridge), Axelar | Monad's docs say assets issued elsewhere reach Monad over bridges usually chosen by each asset's issuer, and list these among many bridge and aggregator providers. No bridge run by Category Labs or the Monad Foundation was identified; who operates the Monad Bridge site, which describes itself as powered by Wormhole, was not verified. Risk: Each bridge adds its own trust: CCTP relies on Circle's attestations, and LayerZero, CCIP, Hyperlane, Wormhole and Axelar messages rely on their own verifier or signer networks and each token's settings. Monad's docs describe the wrapped ether route as a 2-of-2 NTT bridge without naming the two verifiers on the reviewed page. A bridged token is only as sound as its bridge and origin chain. 151632 |
| Block explorers | Established in the ecosystemMonadVision (BlockVision), Monadscan (Etherscan) | Monad's docs list MonadVision, built by BlockVision, and Monadscan, built by Etherscan, as mainnet explorers, plus Tenderly, Phalcon and JiffyScan for traces and user operations. Explorer data is provider-indexed, not consensus. 1422 |
| Hardware wallets | Established in the ecosystemLedger (Ledger Wallet, lower confidence), Trezor (through MetaMask or Rabby) | See custody rows: a Ledger Academy guide says MON can be held and transacted with a Ledger signer and the Ledger Wallet app, while Ledger's wallet code still ties Monad to a feature switch that is off by default in code; Trezor's Monad page says Trezor Suite does not support Monad and names MetaMask and Rabby. Monad's hardware-wallet page also lists SafePal and Tangem for mainnet, which were not reviewed. 21363940 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Native supportSame as native: Unknown | Can: Hold and transact MON with a Ledger signer and the Ledger Wallet app, per Ledger's Monad guide (updated 12 January 2026) Can: Sign with the device's Ethereum app: Ledger's wallet code defines Monad on chain ID 143 with MON at 18 decimalsLower confidence. Ledger's wallet code (develop branch, read 29 September 2026) ties Monad to a feature switch that is off in code unless switched on remotely; the production setting could not be read. As for other networks under the same custody rule, a readable Ledger page telling users they can use MON with Ledger Wallet (a Ledger Academy guide) is taken as the sign that the switch is on. Ledger's coin page returned not found and its support article did not render, so staking, swaps and token handling are not listed. 213536373839 |
| Trezor | Through an intermediaryMetaMask or RabbySame as native: Unknown | Can: Manage MON with a Trezor Safe 3, Safe 5 or Safe 7 through MetaMask or Rabby, per Trezor's Monad page Cannot: Manage Monad in the Trezor Suite app, which Trezor's page marks as not supportedTrezor's Monad page names the Safe 3, Safe 5 and Safe 7 and tells users to open a third-party wallet app. 40 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Monad yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Reviewed Sep 29, 2026 Next review due Oct 9, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
-
MIP-8 page-based storage (MONAD_TEN) activated on mainnet
Client release v0.16.1 set the MONAD_TEN revision, which carries MIP-8, to activate on mainnet at 14:30 UTC on 2 September 2026. MIP-8 groups contract storage into pages of 128 slots: the first access to a page is priced cold and the rest of the page is warm, and the state trie commits to pages. Node operators first ran both database layouts side by side and then dropped the old one.
- Proposal:MIP-8, created 5 March 2026, status Final
- Implementation:shipped in v0.16.0 (testnet) and v0.16.1 (mainnet activation)
- Release:v0.16.1 published 25 August 2026
- Activation:activated on mainnet 2 September 2026 at 14:30 UTC
Sources: Category Labs (GitHub) — monad-bft v0.16.1 (MONAD_TEN mainnet activation) (external site) · Monad Documentation (Monad Foundation) — Releases (external site) · Monad Improvement Proposals (Category Labs) — MIP-8: Page-ified Storage State (external site) · Monad Foundation blog — MIP-8: page-aware storage for the EVM (external site) · Monad Documentation (Monad Foundation) — MIP-8 Activation and Page Storage Migration (external site) · Monad Documentation (Monad Foundation) — Current Facts for AI Agents (external site)
-
MIP-12 cut Monad's block time to 300 ms
MIP-12 lowered the consensus vote pace from 400 ms to 300 ms and scaled block limits down to match: 150 million gas per block, with matching transaction and byte limits, and an 18 MON block reward, down from 25 MON. It activated on mainnet at round 89,758,000 on 23 July 2026, and the Foundation's post that day gives 600 ms finality.
- Proposal:MIP-12, created 1 June 2026, status Final
- Implementation:shipped in monad-bft v0.15.0 and v0.15.1
- Release:v0.15.1 set the mainnet activation round
- Activation:activated on mainnet 23 July 2026
Sources: Monad Foundation blog — Monad Mainnet now has 300ms block times and 600ms finality (external site) · Monad Improvement Proposals (Category Labs) — MIP-12: Decrease Block Time (external site) · Monad Documentation (Monad Foundation) — Releases (external site) · Category Labs (GitHub) — monad-bft v0.15.1 (MIP-12 mainnet activation) (external site)
-
MONAD_NINE hard fork: linear memory, reserve-balance precompile and a new CLZ opcode
Client release v0.13.0 reached mainnet operators on 12 March 2026 and activated the MONAD_NINE revision at 14:30 UTC on 19 March 2026. It brought MIP-3 (linear memory pricing), MIP-4 (a precompile for reserve-balance checks) and MIP-5 (the CLZ opcode and changed modexp bounds and gas). The same release made the RPC tag "latest" return the latest Proposed block and sped up receipts and websocket notices.
- Proposal:MIP-3, MIP-4 and MIP-5 adopted into the MONAD_NINE revision
- Implementation:shipped in monad-bft v0.13.0 and monad v0.13.0+1
- Release:mainnet release 12 March 2026
- Activation:activated on mainnet 19 March 2026 at 14:30 UTC
Sources: Monad Documentation (Monad Foundation) — Releases (external site) · Monad Documentation (Monad Foundation) — v0.13.0 (MONAD_NINE) upgrade instructions (external site) · Monad Documentation (Monad Foundation) — Changelog (revisions and chain configs) (external site) · Category Labs (GitHub) — monad-bft v0.13.0 (MONAD_NINE) (external site)
-
Monad public mainnet launched
The Monad Foundation announced that Monad Mainnet was live on 24 November 2025, and Monad's documentation records the same public launch date for chain ID 143. The Foundation's tokenomics post two weeks earlier set an initial supply of 100 billion MON, a fixed inflationary reward for each block and burning of the base fee.
- Implementation:public mainnet running Category Labs' monad-bft and monad clients
- Release:announced live by the Monad Foundation
- Activation:live since 24 November 2025
Sources: Monad Foundation blog — Get Started on Monad Mainnet (external site) · Monad Documentation (Monad Foundation) — Introduction (external site) · Monad Foundation blog — MON Tokenomics Overview (external site) · Monad Documentation (Monad Foundation) — Current Facts for AI Agents (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Monad through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- Validator operators, stake distribution and the share of stake delegated by the Monad Foundation were not verified; the count of roughly 200 validators comes from a Foundation post.
- The uptime and finalization figures in the Foundation's August 2026 post come from its own telemetry and were not independently checked.
- Ledger's Monad support article did not render for automated reading and the production state of Ledger Wallet's Monad feature switch could not be read, so the Ledger rating rests on a Ledger Academy guide and is lower confidence.
- No light client that checks validator signatures was found; absence was not exhaustively verified.
- No rollup, validium, payment channel or state channel settling to Monad was found; absence was not exhaustively verified.
- Data publication, reversible transfer or recovery, and signed partial offers were not yet researched for Monad.
- Only Garden was reviewed for hash-locked swaps: its Monad contracts are deployed and listed as live in Monad's registry, but Garden's live chain list omitted Monad on 2026-09-29; whether swaps run there, and their audits and liquidity, were not reviewed.
- The 10,000 transactions per second figure is stated as design capacity without a published method, and no observed mainnet rate was reviewed.
- Who operates the Monad Bridge site and who the two verifiers of the 2-of-2 NTT route are was not verified.
- Monad's pages disagree on the current mainnet client: the network page shows v0.15.2 with the MONAD_NINE revision, the facts page v0.16.1 with MONAD_TEN, the release log's latest dated mainnet release is v0.16.2 (10 September 2026) and the networks file gives 0.16.4. The release log, the facts page and the MIP-8 migration guide agree that MONAD_TEN has been active on mainnet since 2 September 2026.
- How much of the execution client reuses Ethereum-community libraries was read from release notes, the repository README and its third-party folder listing only; the code was not audited.
- Mento and Reservoir, listed by DeFiLlama on Monad, were not reviewed.
- The yearly MON issuance after MIP-12 cut the block reward from 25 to 18 MON was not restated by the Foundation on a reviewed page.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 29, 2026 Next check due Oct 29, 2026.
- Introduction (external site)
- Current Facts for AI Agents (external site)
- MonadBFT (external site)
- Asynchronous Execution (external site)
- Block States (external site)
- Staking (external site)
- Statesync (external site)
- Parallel Execution (external site)
- MonadDb (external site)
- Hardware Requirements (external site)
- Full Node Installation (external site)
- Hard Reset Instructions (snapshot restore) (external site)
- Validator Delegation Program (VDP) (external site)
- Network Information - Mainnet (external site)
- Tokens and Bridges (external site)
- Cross-Chain (external site)
- Differences between Monad and Ethereum (external site)
- Transactions (external site)
- EIP-7702 on Monad (external site)
- Changelog (revisions and chain configs) (external site)
- Hardware Wallets (external site)
- Monad Block Explorers: MonadVision and Monadscan (external site)
- Behind Monad's 100% Uptime (published 31 August 2026) (external site)
- MIP-12: Decrease Block Time (external site)
- MonadBFT: Fast, Responsive, Fork-Resistant Streamlined Consensus (external site)
- Monad Execution README (category-labs/monad) (external site)
- Atomic Swaps (external site)
- Garden API: live mainnet chains (Monad not listed on 2026-09-29) (external site)
- monad-crypto/protocols: mainnet/garden.jsonc (external site)
- Uniswap v4 deployments (Monad: 143) (external site)
- USDC contract addresses (external site)
- CCTP supported blockchains and domains (external site)
- Supported Protocols and Integration Guidelines (external site)
- DeFiLlama protocols API (Monad entries) (external site)
- Ledger Wallet currency definition for Monad (ledger-live develop branch) (external site)
- Ledger Wallet feature switch for Monad (currencyMonad) (external site)
- Ledger Wallet feature-switch definitions (a switch declared without a value is off by default) (external site)
- Ledger Wallet feature-flagged currency list (useFeatureFlaggedCurrencies, maps currencyMonad to Monad) (external site)
- The Complete Guide to Monad Blockchain (updated 12 January 2026) (external site)
- Monad wallet (external site)
Report an error
Found something wrong or out of date? Reporting is free, and every chain goes through the same process. Published corrections appear in the public log.
Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding