From: thepipeline_xyz
The Monad ecosystem has experienced a significant week, marked by major announcements, continued Testnet advancements, and vibrant community activity [00:00:09].
Key Announcements & Strategic Partnerships
Circle and Native USDC on Monad Mainnet
Circle will be deploying on Monad Mainnet, bringing native USDC, Circle Wallets, and CCTP v2 [00:00:39]. This is considered a “huge unlock” for DeFi within the Monad ecosystem [00:04:28].
Having native USDC addresses a fragmentation problem where multiple versions of USDC can exist [00:04:34].
Sequence and Other Infrastructure
Sequence has fully deployed on the Monad Testnet, providing significant benefits by unlocking flexibility for developers to focus on building applications and experiences [00:00:55]. Other infrastructure already set up for builders includes Magic Eden for NFTs, Phantom wallet, Uniswap, Wormhole, and LayerZero [00:30:30].
Community Activities & Projects in Monad
Recent community initiatives include:
- Monad Games: Featured prediction markets powered by Opinion Labs and an on-chain cipher game created by the Monad Foundation engineering team [00:01:11].
- Shark Tank number two: Held in the Discord [00:01:24].
Community Shout-outs
Limo, a long-time community member, was recognized for his “amazing woodworkings” of the Monad and Pipeline logos, which he sent to the New York office [00:01:37].
Keone, co-founder of Monad and GM at the Monad Foundation, made his first appearance on “Monad in the Morning” [00:02:43].
KZ, Quant at the Monad Foundation, also made his first appearance [00:59:53].
Community members such as Nuke Lion [01:15:33], Admiral [02:08:48], Mel [00:46:02], Soon [01:55:00], RSKL [01:15:02], Kiwi [01:24:28], M. Skilleder [01:26:30], Nacho [01:23:30], Chaos Walker [01:23:43], Yacht [01:30:34], and Blueblue [01:46:49] were highlighted for their participation and support. Nacho notably donated a prize to Chaos Walker, showcasing the community’s collaborative spirit [01:23:51].
State of Monad NFTs
Karma, Monad Foundation’s NFT lead, presented an overview of the NFT market, both generally and specifically within Monad [01:33:28].
General NFT Market Conditions
The NFT market is currently at or near “rock bottom” in terms of weekly volume and active addresses over the past two years, indicating a “winter” period [01:35:34]. Blur and OpenSea continue to dominate volume on EVM chains [01:36:06]. Despite the downturn, this period is seen as an opportunity for new projects and founders to capture new audiences [01:41:07].
Two notable projects seeing recent insane volumes:
- Open from Jack Butcher: An ongoing collection with community-sourced editions, including the “animals zoo pep pen” [01:38:13].
- Courtyard: Tokenizes and connects physical collectible cards (e.g., baseball, Pokemon cards) with minted NFTs on-chain, acting as a “real-world assets play” [01:38:39].
Monad-Specific NFT Developments
Karma highlighted several Monad-native NFT projects:
- Monape: An OG project whose PFPs were drawn live in Discord streams. It recently released a high-quality trailer for a new chapter in its lore, featuring different PFP fractions contributing to a joint story [01:41:49].
- Blocknuts: An art-focused collection with low supply and individual traits. The team experimented with their own minter on Testnet, allowing raffle tickets for a fairer distribution and avoiding botting [01:43:34].
- Free Mints: Artists Driy and Amnet partnered with Live Art for a new artist incubation program on Monad, releasing open-edition free mints [01:45:17].
Hidden Gems
- Mona Moors: A “super cute” collection with an “unhinged but wholesome energy,” rapidly gaining followers through community support [01:46:44].
- Kruxful: A project creating a community of collectors to attract different artists for small-supply exclusive mints. Its founder, Games, has deep understanding of the art market and a network to bring interesting artists, including Dada (known for work with Starbucks Korea), to Monad [01:48:12].
The Monad Technical Vision and Progress
Keone addressed the common question: “Why do we need another L1?” [00:33:06].
The Testnet is a crucial “proof that this technology works” [00:38:53], demonstrating:
- Over 10,000 transactions per second in load tests [00:39:04].
- Nearly 1 billion transactions to date [00:39:12].
- 150 million accounts created in two months, compared to Ethereum’s 250 million over 10 years [00:39:21].
KZ further emphasized Monad’s commitment to building base technologies from scratch, enabling a raw performance boost of 10,000 transactions per second without compromising decentralization or security (the blockchain trilemma) [01:18:13]. He noted that unlike Solana’s marketed TPS, Monad’s 10,000 TPS is “real” and achieved across a diverse set of transactions, not just simple token transfers [01:22:03].
Outlook and Future Initiatives
The Monad team maintains a long-term vision, focusing on building performant infrastructure to enable crypto to “eat the world” [00:45:24]. Keone stressed that optimism comes from deep knowledge of what’s possible and trust in the team and community [00:47:36].
The Testnet period is seen as a “perfect amount of time” for developers to experiment, get user feedback, and build new applications, amplified by the capabilities of AI [00:27:13]. The Monad community is recognized for its “incredibly high” talent and creativity [00:28:19].
Developers are encouraged to leverage the Testnet and contribute to the ecosystem [00:28:10]. Upcoming NFT events include Gospel of Bob on April 20th and Coronad’s mint [01:51:36].