Monad: The fast parallel Ethereum

Monad is a high-throughput EVM Layer 1 designed to remove the sequential bottlenecks that keep most Ethereum-compatible chains in the low thousands of TPS. It combines a HotStuff-style BFT consensus, optimistic parallel EVM execution, and a custom storage and networking stack to deliver very fast blocks and near-instant finality. For Rango, the headline is simple: it is an EVM chain that looks like Ethereum to integrate, but behaves like a low-latency high-frequency venue in production. 

• Monad is a performance-first, EVM-equivalent Layer 1 aimed at 10,000+ TPS with sub-second finality. The protocol keeps Ethereum bytecode and RPC semantics intact, so Solidity contracts, wallets, and infra can port with zero or near-zero refactors. The performance comes from re-architecting execution and consensus under the hood rather than changing the developer surface area. 

• The chain uses MonadBFT consensus, parallel EVM execution, and asynchronous pipelining to hit low latency at scale. MonadBFT is derived from HotStuff and optimized for single-slot finality, so confirmations behave like “one block and done” even under load. Execution is optimistic and parallel, meaning independent transactions run simultaneously, and only conflicting ones are re-ordered, keeping results identical to Ethereum while scaling with CPU cores. 

• Monad was founded by ex-Jump Trading low-latency engineers and is organized around Category Labs plus the Monad Foundation. The founders’ background in high-frequency systems shows up in the emphasis on pipeline efficiency, storage throughput, and fast block propagation. Category Labs leads protocol R&D while the Foundation manages ecosystem growth and decentralization, which is the standard L1 structure for long-term governance and grants. 

• Public testnet has been live since February 19, 2025 with mainnet planned for late 2025. Testnet stats already show multi-billion transaction counts and stable sub-second blocks, which is unusually mature for a pre-mainnet L1. That makes it realistic for integrators to build now and flip endpoints at mainnet without a second integration cycle. 

• Funding is deep at about $244M total, led by Dragonfly and Paradigm. The $19M seed was announced in 2023, and a $225M round closed in April 2024 with top-tier funds participating. This level of capitalization typically translates into heavy ecosystem incentives, infra partnerships, and exchange support around mainnet, which drives the early liquidity and bridge demand that aggregators thrive on.

Monad is trying to solve a clear constraint in the EVM world: even if you increase gas limits and optimize clients, sequential execution caps throughput and stretches latency tails. The project’s approach is not to modify the EVM’s semantics, but to parallelize the pipeline that feeds those semantics. The result is a chain that preserves Ethereum determinism, ordering rules, and bytecode, while scaling execution and I/O like a modern multi-core system. 

Monad was founded in 2022 by Keone Hon, James Hunsaker, and Eunice Giarta. The founding team has deep systems backgrounds from Jump Trading and other low-latency hardware and software environments. Their professional history explains the chain’s preference for pipelining, speculative concurrency, and careful I/O optimization. The core development entity began as Monad Labs in New York, and in late 2024 it rebranded its protocol R&D arm to Category Labs. 

In December 2024, the project formalized a two-entity structure. Category Labs continues to build the protocol and client stack under James Hunsaker’s leadership. The newly formed Monad Foundation oversees ecosystem development, decentralization, and community growth, with Keone Hon and Eunice Giarta moving into Foundation leadership roles. This split matters because it creates a neutral steward for grants and governance, and also clarifies where integrators should look for ecosystem and partnership coordination.

Monad is no longer an early research chain. It is in an advanced public testnet phase, and the ecosystem is already using it. The stage matters for Rango because we are supporting this fast Layerv1 blockchain from day 1. 

• Public testnet is live since February 19, 2025 and is processing large-scale activity. Multiple explorers show multi-billion total transactions and stable block production at sub-second intervals, which indicates the core performance path is already running in the open. The testnet is open to wallets, dApps, infra providers, and end users, so the behavior we see is closer to real load than to internal benchmarking. 

• Mainnet is planned for late November, and we are going to support it from day 1 when it launches publicly. With airdrop announcement in late October, anticipation of the mainnet launch is very soon is high. 

• Developer tooling is effectively mainnet-grade already. Standard EVM workflows function normally, including Solidity deployments, Metamask style RPC connections, and common indexers. For integrators, this allows a build-now strategy where testnet endpoints can be swapped to mainnet with minimal deltas beyond gas and chain ID adjustments.

Monad’s capital base is one of its clearest signals of seriousness. In L1 land, the size, quality, and timing of raises directly affect ecosystem velocity, infra coverage, and liquidity bootstrapping. Monad’s funding profile implies a strong go-to-market cycle around mainnet, which is the moment when cross-chain volume spikes. 

• Seed round in 2023 raised $19M led by Dragonfly Capital. The seed was announced as a foundational round to build a high-performance EVM Layer 1, and it included a broad syndicate of crypto funds and angels. This round financed early devnets and the first full client implementations, and it validated the core thesis before any public network existed. 

• Series round in April 2024 raised $225M led by Paradigm, bringing total capital to about $244M. The raise was widely covered as one of the largest infrastructure rounds of the year, with participants including Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital, and Greenoaks. That scale gives Monad plenty of runways for validator incentives, builder grants, exchange listings, and post-launch liquidity programs, which directly drives activity on new chains. 

• The investor mix suggests a long-horizon infrastructure bet, not a short hype cycle. Paradigm and Dragonfly have a track record of backing base-layer platforms they expect to mature into multi-year ecosystems. Historically, chains with this kind of backing lean hard into early DeFi incentives and deep infra partnerships, which increases the probability of real on-chain liquidity and meaningful bridge flows on day one.

Even before mainnet, Monad is cultivating a performance-native application layer rather than only relying on ports. That matters because aggregator quality depends on the density of liquidity venues and the diversity of user intent. A chain that launches with only a couple of AMMs is not interesting to route across. Monad is shaping up to avoid that pitfall. 

• DeFi is the ecosystem centerpiece, with venues that explicitly exploit low latency. Multiple teams are building AMMs, order books, and perp stacks on Monad testnet, attempting structures that usually require high throughput to feel usable. The early presence of these primitives implies that at mainnet, we will see both spot and derivatives liquidity arriving quickly, which creates a rich routing graph for Rango. 

• Aggregation and blue-chip EVM apps are already testing the waters. Uniswap has enabled Monad testnet in its official interface, which is a strong compatibility and ecosystem-confidence signal. Native aggregators are also emerging on Monad testnet, suggesting that users will expect multi-venue routing on this chain from the start; a value that we, Rango Exchange, are providing for you from the first day of launch. 

• Infra and cross-chain plumbing is being installed ahead of launch. Public RPC and explorer support is already live, and the presence of Foundation programs like Monad Madness signals ongoing onboarding of new teams. When a chain reaches this infra threshold in testnet, it usually means mainnet will open with functioning bridges, oracles, and indexers rather than waiting months for the basics. That dramatically reduces integration risk for cross-chain workflows.

Monad’s public testnet activity is unusually high for a pre-mainnet network. Explorer data indicates billions of total transactions and consistent high daily throughput windows. While some of that is driven by testnet incentive loops and automated participation, the magnitude still tells us something important: the chain is not failing under load, and its performance goals are being exercised outside a lab. 

• Throughput and stability. Public explorer snapshots show sustained sub-second block times and ongoing transaction processing with healthy success rates. This is the key variable for DeFi market quality. When block intervals are short and predictable, order book updates, liquidation engines, and arbitrage loops tighten, which increases volume and liquidity depth. It also lowers the latency penalty of doing cross-chain routing, because the destination leg clears quickly enough to make atomic or near-atomic UX plausible.  

• Testnet scale as a readiness proxy. A chain that can survive multi-million daily transactions in testnet without major instability is much more likely to handle incentive-driven surges on mainnet. Monad’s explorer totals already sit in the multi-billion range, which means the client stack has been iterated in public under real adversarial conditions. This is not just about raw TPS. It is about having a stable, observable, and debuggable network with mature tooling, which is what integrators need for production routing and bridge monitoring.  

• What mainnet likely looks like. Given the funding runway and the current builder funnel, the mainnet phase should start with a strong DeFi and cross-chain pull. New L1s with large war chests frequently launch with liquidity incentives and user distribution campaigns, which typically cause a rapid bridge-in event, a DEX volume spike, and a long tail of retained activity. Since Monad’s design targets high-interaction apps, it is more likely than most EVM chains to maintain a high baseline after the initial rush rather than collapsing into inactivity. 

Monad occupies a rare position among upcoming Layer 1s. It offers a clear performance leap without forcing the ecosystem to abandon the EVM, and it has the financial and organizational scaffolding to translate technology into a real app layer. Parallel execution, pipelined consensus, and an optimized state engine create a low-latency environment that makes advanced DeFi structures viable on an EVM chain. The public testnet has already been stress-tested at scale, and infrastructure and ecosystem programs indicate mainnet will not launch into a vacuum. 

• Body Image Resource: Pipelining laundry day

• Paradigm leads $225M round for Monad Labs focused on parallel EVM

• Monad Labs closes $19M seed round led by Dragonfly Capital

• Monad official website

• Monad Foundation

• Monad Madness

• Monad testnet explorer

• MonadVision statistics page