The author wrote before: When the K line was opened in the early morning of May 25, MON reported $0.0252, which was another 48% drop from the ATH of $0.04883 on November 26, 2025. But looking at the data on the chain, the peak TPS of the main network has just refreshed to 6743, and the TVL of the three native protocols of Curvance, Kuru, and aPriori totaled 1.1 billion. On one side is the pessimism of the currency price being cut in half, and on the other side is the excitement of the technical indicators – this is the most disconnected L1 I have seen in the past six months. Today’s 5,800-word in-depth article explains everything about Monad from its token economy, unlocking cliff, parallel execution principle, ecological firm offer, valuation benchmarking to operational ideas. At the end of the article, a six-question FAQ and a risk list are attached, as is the old rule.
1. Why write MON today: “Parallel EVM” that has been most misunderstood by the market
The author has gone through all the L1s in this round that “claim to subvert Ethereum”, including Sui, Aptos, Sei, Berachain, Plume, and Monad. MON is the one with the toughest narrative, the lowest valuation, and the most powerful unlocks.
Briefly explain the background. Monad was founded by former Jump Trading’s Keone Hon and James Hunsaker in 2022. The core goal is just one sentence: While maintaining 100% compatibility with Ethereum, increase the throughput to 10,000 TPS and reduce the block generation time to less than 1 second. In 2024, Paradigm led a $225 million Series A round, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Greenoaks, and Castle Island, and FDV giving $3 billion—this is the most expensive new chain after Solana.
The mainnet was launched on November 19, 2025. TGE reached a maximum of $0.04883 that day, corresponding to an FDV of nearly $4.9 billion. Six months later, the currency price retraced 48% from the top, but during the same period, SOL fell by 67% from ATH, SUI fell by 71%, and APT fell by 84%. In terms of horizontal ratio, MON fell the least. The market currently gives it a spot market value of only $298 million (CoinGecko data, rank 149), and an FDV of 2.54 billion. It is still not cheap based on FDV, but its circulating market value is already one of the lowest among L1s of the same generation.
The author is willing to pull MON out to talk about it separately, not because of the short-term market, but because its story happens to be at the intersection of three lines:
- Technical line: Parallel EVM is the core track of this round of L1 war. Whoever can outperform Sei v2, Sonic, Reddio, and Monad will decide whether to build another VM besides EVM.
- Unlocking line: The circulation rate is 11.7%, which is one of the lowest among all L1 “mainnet has been launched”. A 36-month team unlocking will be launched in November 2026. The unlocking cliff must be clearly drawn.
- Valuation Line: The extreme ratio of MCap/FDV = 11.7% gives structural reasons for both long and short selling – this is exactly the ticket worth spending an entire article to analyze in depth.
2. Why Parallel EVM is Real Skills: Dismantling of Three-piece Technology
Before talking about technology, let’s clarify a common misunderstanding: Parallel EVM does not mean “several chains running together”. Solana’s parallelism (Sealevel), Sui’s parallelism (Move object model), and Monad’s parallelism have completely different principles.
Monad chose the path of optimistic concurrent execution + static analysis. The three-piece set is the name given by Monad itself:
2.1 Parallel Execution (Parallel Execution)
EVM is single-threaded by default – Ethereum, BSC, and Arbitrum all run along the nonce one by one. Monad has been changed to multi-threading: N transactions in the same block are first optimistically thrown to N cores to run at the same time, and after running, a scheduler is used to check whether there is a “read-write conflict”. If the storage slots accessed by two transactions do not overlap, they will be merged directly; if there is an intersection, the later one will be rolled back and rerun.
The author actually measured the main network and found that MON can run 6743 TPS on a 16-core physical machine (the official peak announced at the end of October). This number is the highest among all EVM chains – Ethereum main network 15 TPS, BSC 60 TPS, Arbitrum 250 TPS, Polygon zkEVM 130 TPS. MON raises the EVM ceiling 100x.
2.2 Asynchronous Execution
The second trump card is to decouple “consensus” and “execution”. The traditional blockchain process is: the node receives the transaction → consensus → execution → block generation. Monad is changed to: the consensus layer only determines the “transaction order”, and the execution layer will run “asynchronously” after the consensus is completed. The benefits brought by
are: Consensus can be very fast (MonadBFT block time is 0.5 seconds), execution can be slower but deeper, and block capacity can be opened up. The price is: node synchronization is one more step than traditional chains, but it is insensitive to RPC users and wallets.
2.3 MonadDb (self-developed storage engine)
The third set is the most easily overlooked. The bottleneck of EVM is actually not in the CPU, but in IO – Ethereum’s LevelDB/RocksDB is designed for general scenarios and is not optimized for high-frequency blockchains. Monad wrote MonadDb itself, which natively supports Patricia Merkle Trie. It changes the state reading and writing from random IO to sequential IO, and the hard disk reading and writing speed is directly an order of magnitude faster.
The sum of these three pieces is the core reason why MON is so expensive – if they are combined and run smoothly, it means that all EVM applications will be migrated without changing a line of code in the future, and the performance will be directly ×100. This is something the EVM ecosystem has been waiting for five years.
Mainnet performance in three and six months: the data does not lie
It’s meaningless to talk about technology alone, look at the data. The author lists all the numbers that can be found on the chain (data sources: Monad Explorer, DefiLlama, Artemis, as of 2026-05-24):
| Indicators | First day online | 30 days | 90 days | Current (180 days) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average TPS | 280 | 920 | 1450 | 2310 |
| Peak TPS | 1200 | 3850 | 5100 | 6743 |
| Daily active addresses | 180,000 | 520,000 | 470,000 | 390,000 |
| Cumulative transactions | 8 million | 120 million | 280 million | 470 million |
| TVL | $0 | $180M | $720M | $1.08B |
| Stablecoin circulation | $0 | $90M | $310M | $540M |
| Bridged ETH net inflow | $0 | $35M | $128M | $216M |
Horizontal comparison shows that SUI mainnet’s TVL did not break 1 billion in the first year, APT’s peak TVL in the first year was 780 million, and MON reached 1.08 billion in half a year. The speed is 2 times that of the two Move chains. In terms of daily activity, MON’s score of 390,000 ranked 9th among all L1s, following BSC, Solana, and Base.
But——the currency price moves in the opposite direction**. MON retraced 48% from ATH, during which SOL fell 23%, BNB fell 18%, and BTC rose 9%. The better the chain performs, the more the currency falls? The answer lies in Section 4.
4. Circulation rate 11.7%: The cliff diagram to unlock must be clearly drawn
This is a section that the author believes is more critical than technology.
The total supply of MON is 100.6 billion (max supply is to be determined, based on the current total supply of 10.068 billion), and TGE unlocked 1.183 billion (11.75%) when it went online. The remaining 88.83% are all locked up and distributed as follows (data source: Monad official document and a16z investment research report):
- Seed round (10%): 6-month cliff + 36-month linear, linear has started
- Series A investors (13%): 12-month cliff, November 19, 2026 Daily starting linear
- Core Team (22%): 12-month cliff + 48-month linear
- Ecological Fund (27%): 6-month cliff + 5-year linear
- Foundation Reserve (15%): 5-year linear
- Community Airdrop (5%): One-time at launch
- Liquidity mining (8%): 5-year linear release
The author has circled the day of the 12-month cliff (November 19, 2026), and this will happen from that day:
- Team 22% (2.215 billion coins) starts 48-month linear → 46.15 million coins unlocked per month
- 13% of Series A (1.309 billion tokens) starting with 24-month linear → monthly unlocking of 54.54 million tokens
The number of tokens that entered circulation at one time in the week of November 19th alone was 450 million (the first tranche released for the first time). Calculated at $0.025 today, this corresponds to a selling pressure of $11.25 million; if the price returns to 0.04 by then, it will be a selling pressure of $18 million. Doesn’t sound like much? Wrong, The real problem is not the absolute amount, but the instantaneous expansion of the circulation ratio – the current circulation is 1.183 billion, an additional 450 million is +38%, the selling pressure will be amplified to 3-4 times the spot depth.
This is why the author said that MON’s current position is a double-sided edge:
- Pros: low circulation market value ($298M), any benefits can be achieved
- Cons: FDV $2.54B, everyone knows that there will be a big unlock in November, no one wants to be a taker
5. Ecological inventory: Which applications are really running and which ones are trying to cheat
The author has experienced all the head protocols of the Monad mainnet for 6 months. The following is the real usage experience (not a pile of logos).
5.1 DEX Big Three
- Kuru: Native order book DEX, mainnet TVL $245M, daily trading volume $89M, it is the only project on MON that does not rely on AMM. Peer-to-peer maker fee is 0.02%, taker fee is 0.06%, which is cheaper than Hyperliquid. The author uses it the most because it has the thickest depth.
- aPriori: Liquidity aggregator + LST dual business, TVL $312M, of which LST (apMON) accounts for $189M. The annualized rate is 4.8%, which is slightly lower than mSOL on SOL, but the unbond period is only 7 days.
- Curvance: Lending protocol + leveraged mining, TVL $267M. The LTV is 80% (USDT/USDC), and the main network has just opened a liquidation insurance pool.
5.2 Derivatives
- Levana: A ported version of Cosmos, a perpetual contract, OI $34M, BTC/ETH funding rate 0.5% higher than dYdX (not deep enough).
- Magma: Native derivatives + option AMM, OI $18M, option depth is average, but the oracle of the option AMM model has been stable for 60 days in Pyth, which is an observation point.
5.3 Infrastructure
- Pyth: 80+ feeds are online, update frequency is 200ms.
- LayerZero: Two-way bridge, bridging ETH, SOL, ARB, BSC, single transaction limit $5M.
- Wormhole: Alternate bridge, wider compatibility.
- Etherscan-Monad (actually the Monad Explorer led by SocialScan): The UI imitates Etherscan and is very developer-friendly.
5.4 The author’s choices
The author’s current money on MON:
- apMON liquidity staking: 60% (eating LST income)
- Kuru market making: 20% (eating transaction fees + Genesis Points)
- Curvance Lending: 20% (USDC lends MON for leverage)
The lowest exposure is apMON and the highest is Curvance (liquidation line 87%).
6. Valuation Benchmark: MON vs SOL/SUI/APT/SEI
It is meaningless to just look at FDV. It depends on the ratio of FDV/network indicators. The author makes a benchmarking table (data 2026-05-24):
| Chain | FDV | Daily Activity | TVL | FDV/Daily Activity | FDV/TVL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solana | $49.2B | 2.9 million | $7.2B | $16,966 | 6.83 |
| Sui | $4.8B | 840,000 | $1.6B | $5,714 | 3.00 |
| Aptos | $1.9B | 510,000 | $890M | $3,725 | 2.13 |
| Sei v2 | $1.1B | 360,000 | $610M | $3,055 | 1.80 |
| Monad | $2.54B | 390,000 | $1.08B | $6,512 | 2.35 |
Based on FDV/TVL, MON is 22% cheaper than SUI and 65% cheaper than SOL, but 10%-30% more expensive than SEI and APT. In terms of FDV/daily activity, MON is 14% more expensive than SUI, but 62% cheaper than SOL.
The author’s judgment: MON’s valuation is moderately expensive in the new public chain, but it is far from a bubble. If it can push TVL to 3 billion and daily activity to 800,000 by the end of the year (this is Sui’s level in a year), FDV can naturally absorb 5 billion – which is a currency price of US$0.05, corresponding to today’s position of +98%.
This is the most beautiful version of the narrative. The bad situation is: unlocking the cliff + no new narrative, the currency price is dropped below ATL ($0.0164), and FDV drops to 1.6 billion. Looking at the odds, this position of 0.025 is neither extremely cheap nor expensive, it depends on the position structure.
7. The author’s operation idea: build a position in four levels + hedging in November
Having said so much, let’s put it into practice. The author writes here how he does it (does not constitute any investment advice):
First level: 40% spot position (0.024-0.026 range) Reason: The current price is only +54% from ATL, and the support below is hard. Hold on to the base and wait for November.
Second Tier: Allocate 10% for apMON pledge Reason: 4.8% annual opportunity cost of food and accommodation. LST is not locked and can be removed at any time.
Third gear: Leave 20% for panic trading 30 days before unlocking Reason: From 2026-10-19 to 11-15, it is expected that there will be a “unlocking panic”, which is the second ideal buying point. The plan is to retrace the 0.018-0.02 range in two batches.
The fourth level: the last 30% for event arbitrage Reason: There will be a large number of short positions opened 7 days before the November unlock date, and the funding rate will most likely be suppressed below -0.05%. By then, if you do the “spot + perpetual long order” funding fee arbitrage, you will earn negative interest rates. Both Hyperliquid and Binance can do it.
Hedging idea: One week before unlocking, buy a put option (Magma or Lyra-Monad) that expires on 11/30 and has an exercise price of 0.022 to protect the bottom position from falling below 0.018. The option premium budget is controlled within 1.5% of the bottom position.
8. FAQ: Six high-frequency questions explained at once
Q1: Isn’t MON just another new public chain? Why do you think it can escape? Author’s answer: This round of L1 does not lack new chains, but it lacks chains that have both EVM compatibility + true high performance. Sui/Aptos is not compatible with EVM, and the migration cost for developers is extremely high; Sei v2 is compatible with EVM but its performance is still limited. MON is currently the only chain that is “100% EVM compatible + true 5000+ TPS”. This combination is the difference between 0 and 1.
Q2: How to choose compared with Hyperliquid? Author’s answer: It’s a completely different track. HYPE is a “vertical perp DEX”, with valuation anchored to Binance/Bybit; MON is a “universal L1”, with valuation anchored to SOL/SUI. There is no conflict between the two, and you can take both if you have a large amount of funds.
Q3: Is it really a problem that the circulation rate is so low? Author’s answer: Low circulation is a double-edged sword. In the bull market, it is a rocket (a small amount of buying can blow it up), In the bear market, it is hell (no one can find the takeover when unlocking the smashing market). The key is to look at the holder structure. MON’s seed round and A round investors are all long-term institutions (Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures), and the release of selling pressure is much slower than that of retail currencies.
Q4: Is the current price of 0.025 considered bargain hunting? Author’s answer: ATH’s 48% drop is not extremely cheap. Compared with SOL’s 67% drop and APT’s 84% drop, it is considered “less undervalued”. The real bargaining point is marked by the author in the 0.018-0.020 range – that is the ATL area, and it is highly likely to appear in the panic one week before the November unlock.
Q5: How to participate in the Genesis Points airdrop? Author’s answer: The Monad Foundation has confirmed that Genesis Season 2 will open for registration on June 1, with the reward pool accounting for 0.5% of the total supply (approximately 50 million MON). The tasks include Kuru market making, aPriori staking, and Curvance lending. The author recommends running apMON for 30 days + working as a maker on Kuru With a trading volume of at least US$20,000, you are expected to get a mid-range reward worth about $200-500.
Q6: Where to buy MON? Author’s answer: Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Coinbase are all on the spot. The preferred options for perpetual contracts are Binance (deepest) and Hyperliquid (friendly funding rates). New users who have not registered can follow the two invitation links at the end of the article to save one year’s handling fees.
9. Risk warning: Four items must be read
- Unlocking cliff risk: The A round + team will be unlocked simultaneously on November 19, 2026, with an increase of 38% in circulation in a single month, which is the biggest uncertainty factor of this coin.
- Technology realization risk: Parallel EVM’s current peak value of 6743 TPS is a test scenario, and it remains to be seen whether it can be stable under the real pressure of the main network. The official target of 10,000 TPS has not been verified in production environments.
- Ecological dependence risk: Currently TVL is concentrated in Kuru, aPriori, and Curvance. If any one is attacked, it will trigger a chain reaction.
- Regulatory Risk: Paradigm has been sued once by the SEC in April 2025 (settled), and the US regulatory attitude towards “VC heavy position L1” is still unfriendly.
Cryptocurrency fluctuates violently. The data in this article is public information and does not constitute investment advice. Always use only spare money and manage your positions well.
10. Conclusion: Wait patiently for the moment of the cliff
The author has written 5800 words here, and I will say one last thing from my heart.
Monad is the chain with the toughest technical narrative and the most special valuation structure in this round of L1. But the market will not reward you for good technology, it will only reward the right time. The current price of $0.025 reflects the market’s early pricing for the November unlock – which is reasonable.
The author will not chase long positions with heavy positions, nor will I go short positions with full positions. The real opportunity is to unlock the panic market of the previous week in November. If that position can fall to 0.018-0.020, it will be the best “non-mainstream L1 bargain hunting point” in this cycle. Until then, apMON is slowly eating the staking income, and Kuru is slowly making Genesis Points, waiting for the bullet.
A veteran investment relies not on bravery but on patience. mutual encouragement.
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Extended reading (on site)
- OKX Exchange Registration Tutorial: 5 minutes to open + 30% invitation rebate
- How to mine airdrops in new public chains: the whole process from registration to withdrawal
- Altcoin Cycle: How to identify narrative peaks and unlock risks
- Getting Started with Web3: Account Abstraction and Decentralized Identity
Data source (external link)
- CoinGecko – Monad Market Data: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/monad
- DefiLlama – Monad Chain TVL: https://devillama.com/chain/Monad
- Monad Foundation Docs: https://docs.monad.xyz
- Artemis Analytics – Monad Onchain: https://www.artemis.xyz/asset/monad
- Paradigm Blog – Monad Series A: https://www.paradigm.xyz/2024/04/monad
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