From: thepipeline_xyz
Monad Labs is a company focused on building the Monad blockchain, an initiative aimed at significantly improving the performance of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) [00:00:46] [00:00:49]. The team, comprising around 25 people, includes co-founder and CEO Keone and Head of Developer Relations Kevin G [00:00:12] [00:00:16] [00:06:10] [00:06:14]. Keone brings a decade of experience as a quant in high-frequency trading [00:00:52] [00:00:54], while Kevin’s background is in low-level systems engineering, including prior roles at Solana and Apple AirPods [00:01:04] [00:01:08] [00:01:11].
Revamping the EVM
Monad Labs began its work in early 2022 with a clear focus on the EVM’s execution stack [00:01:51] [00:02:02]. The team aims to make EVM execution more performant by introducing optimizations like parallel execution [00:02:06] [00:02:12]. This includes developing a high-performance state database, Monad DB, that stores data in a Merkel tree while supporting parallel access for many reads and writes [00:02:22] [00:02:24] [00:02:26]. They believe that addressing these underlying bottlenecks in the Ethereum Virtual Machine is crucial for scaling the dominant standard for smart contracts, which currently accounts for 98% of total value locked (TVL) in crypto [00:02:33] [00:03:06] [00:03:07] [00:03:10] [00:03:12] [00:03:14].
This “first principles” approach addresses fundamental system-level problems within the EVM [00:04:03] [00:04:05], leveraging best practices from 30 years of high-performance computing to build a more performant execution stack [00:04:21] [00:04:24] [00:04:26].
Team and Approach
The Monad Labs team consists of engineers with extensive experience in building high-performance, low-latency systems [00:07:16] [00:07:18] [00:07:22]. Their expertise extends to managing the performance of entire systems, sometimes requiring kernel-level optimizations [00:07:35] [00:07:38]. The Monad blockchain itself is designed to function partly as a database, handling many threads simultaneously, managing data storage on disk, and optimizing cache for fast reads [00:07:47] [00:07:51] [00:08:01].
Value Proposition for Builders
Monad aims to unlock greater composability for developers on the EVM [00:09:24] [00:09:27]. Current EVM limitations, such as practical gas limits, hinder deep cross-program invocation, unlike Solana which has a CPI (cross-program invocation) depth of three [00:09:35] [00:09:37] [00:09:39]. By significantly reducing gas costs, Monad will remove these practical limitations, enabling features like account abstraction without prohibitive expenses [00:09:42] [00:09:49] [00:09:58] [00:10:26] [00:10:27].
As a Layer 1 blockchain, Monad also has the flexibility to experiment with and add new opcodes, such as BLS pre-compiles, which can unlock features like base-layer privacy and private smart contracts without breaking backward compatibility [00:10:38] [00:10:49] [00:10:51] [00:10:57] [00:11:01] [00:11:15].
The EVM was initially designed to allow arbitrary composition of applications, like ERC-20 tokens built at the smart contract layer [00:11:36] [00:11:39] [00:11:41] [00:11:55]. However, practical limitations such as high gas costs and limited block space (around 200 transactions every 12 seconds) have constrained this vision [00:12:16] [00:12:18] [00:12:21] [00:12:29] [00:12:32] [00:12:34]. Monad aims to accelerate the EVM’s original concept, enabling developers to truly build anything without these prior constraints [00:13:22] [00:13:26] [00:13:29].
This expansion of the “design space” means leveraging existing, well-tested EVM components and standards (like ERCs) to compose new, more complex applications that were previously impractical due to gas costs [00:15:15] [00:15:18] [00:15:20] [00:15:22] [00:15:24] [00:15:26]. Examples include advanced NFT standards with in-protocol royalty enforcement or loyalty tracking [00:17:03] [00:17:05] [00:17:07] [00:17:09].
Target Applications
Monad is particularly excited about two main application areas:
- Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Enabling normal users to manage personal finances in a decentralized manner, including money markets, decentralized exchanges, derivatives, and high-fidelity oracles at scale [00:21:14] [00:21:18] [00:21:20] [00:21:23] [00:21:26] [00:21:33]. The vision is for financial products to replace incumbent services that charge high fees [00:22:04] [00:22:07] [00:22:10] [00:22:13].
- Consumer-facing applications: This includes applications like onchain sports betting, casinos, and social apps – essentially anything that makes sense as a phone app [00:22:59] [00:23:01] [00:23:05] [00:23:10] [00:23:12] [00:23:15]. This includes ideas like event ticketing where tickets are NFTs, serving as permanent mementos [00:17:55] [00:17:58] [00:18:00]. These applications are currently too expensive to build on Ethereum due to gas costs [00:18:24] [00:18:26] [00:18:28].
Monad also seeks to enable “data sovereignty” by allowing users to keep their data in their wallets, with apps serving content based on what’s in the wallet. This allows for rich, context-aware native experiences, similar to personalized shopping websites, but with cryptographic security [00:23:31] [00:23:33] [00:23:36] [00:23:43] [00:23:45] [00:24:02] [00:24:03] [00:24:07] [00:24:09] [00:24:11] [00:24:13] [00:24:15] [00:24:17]. This requires a chain with high throughput and low fees due to the large amount of data involved [00:24:49] [00:24:51] [00:24:53].
Comparison and Synergy with Other Blockchains
While Solana offers low fees and scalability, its lack of EVM compatibility can make the developer experience tricky [00:22:50] [00:22:52] [00:22:55]. Monad focuses on EVM compatibility to meet developers where they are, while simultaneously solving pressing performance problems [00:25:58] [00:25:59] [00:26:02] [00:26:06].
Monad does not aim to replace or compete with Ethereum [00:42:18] [00:42:20] [00:42:23]. Instead, it seeks to enable new modes of transactions that are more plentiful and cheaper, allowing for use cases not possible within the current Ethereum environment [00:42:25] [00:42:28] [00:42:31] [00:42:33] [00:42:36]. The focus is on growing the entire blockchain ecosystem rather than splitting existing market share [00:45:34] [00:45:36].
Challenges and Solutions for Builders
Key challenges for builders in the EVM environment include:
- Funding: Difficulty in attracting funding, especially for international builders due to a US-biased investor community [00:33:06] [00:33:08] [00:33:12] [00:33:16] [00:33:18].
- Security: Building decentralized applications is inherently challenging due to constant probing by black-hat hackers [00:33:34] [00:33:38] [00:33:40] [00:33:49] [00:33:52] [00:33:54].
Monad aims to address security by substantially reducing gas costs, which currently force developers to compromise on including defensive assertions (checks) to save on fees [00:34:03] [00:34:06] [00:34:10] [00:34:11] [00:34:13] [00:34:16] [00:34:20]. This allows for more robust security practices [00:34:23] [00:34:24].
The crypto community offers a significant advantage with its strong, engaged community eager to try new products, unlike traditional tech startups [00:35:17] [00:35:20].
User and Developer Acquisition
Monad’s primary goal is to bring new users into crypto and enable them to use decentralized applications [00:42:59] [00:43:01] [00:43:04]. This is critical for generating significant block space usage, as simply migrating existing users isn’t enough given the early stages of mass adoption [00:43:09] [00:43:11] [00:43:13] [00:43:16].
Monad aims to deliver compelling use cases and “killer apps” with user experiences comparable to Web2 applications [00:43:37] [00:43:41] [00:36:00] [00:36:04] [00:36:06]. This involves overcoming current onboarding hurdles like learning browser wallets, moving funds, and securing private keys, often in collaboration with teams building better wallets and fiat on-ramps [00:43:47] [00:43:49] [00:43:51] [00:43:53] [00:43:56] [00:43:58] [00:44:00] [00:44:03] [00:44:04] [00:44:07] [00:44:09] [00:44:12] [00:44:15]. The goal is to shift Web2 developers’ perception of what’s possible on a blockchain [00:36:11] [00:36:14].
Measuring Performance: TPS
Transactions Per Second (TPS) is a frequently discussed metric in the blockchain space, but its definition can be confusing due to non-uniform measurement practices [00:48:50] [00:48:52] [00:48:55] [00:49:24].
Key distinctions:
- Voting transactions: Some block explorers, particularly in Solana, include validator votes in their advertised TPS, inflating the number [00:47:16] [00:47:18] [00:47:21] [00:47:37] [00:47:39] [00:47:42]. For example, Solana might advertise 3,000 TPS, but the “true” TPS (user transactions) might be closer to 500 TPS, with the rest being validator votes [00:48:00] [00:48:04] [00:48:06] [00:48:09] [00:48:12] [00:48:15].
- Instruction vs. Transaction: Some platforms count individual instructions within a smart contract invocation as separate “transactions,” artificially boosting their reported numbers [00:48:57] [00:49:00] [00:49:05] [00:49:07] [00:49:09] [00:49:11] [00:49:15].
- Capacity vs. Demand: Current TPS often reflects demand rather than the system’s maximum capacity [00:49:39] [00:49:42].
Monad believes TPS should only count “real” transactions, such as smart contract interactions and transfers, and will not include votes in its reported TPS [00:48:21] [00:48:24] [00:48:28] [00:48:31] [00:48:34] [00:48:39]. A more accurate comparison might be raw bytes per second, as transaction sizes and complexities vary significantly [00:51:50] [00:51:53] [00:51:55] [00:51:57] [00:52:00] [00:52:02] [00:52:10] [00:52:12].
Monad Labs plans to introduce reproducible benchmarks with full GitHub scripts, allowing others to verify and reproduce their transaction throughput tests, similar to scientific research [00:50:49] [00:50:51] [00:50:55] [00:50:58] [00:51:01] [00:51:03] [00:51:06] [00:51:08] [00:51:10] [00:51:12] [00:51:14] [00:51:17] [00:51:20]. Their benchmark for the Monad blockchain is the historical Ethereum transaction history, serving as a proxy for real-life activity [00:52:53] [00:52:56] [00:52:59] [00:53:02].
In the long term, Monad believes its unique edge will transition from execution performance (which will become more common) to a combination of community, killer apps, an evolving research community, and a continued commitment to pushing technological limits while maintaining decentralization [00:39:06] [00:39:10] [00:39:13] [00:39:15] [00:39:36] [00:39:39] [00:40:06] [00:40:10] [00:40:12] [00:40:15] [00:40:18] [00:40:21] [00:40:23] [00:40:26].