Monad Devnet launches with the promise of scalability: could it push Ethereum technology to new heights?

Last updated: March 14, 2024 2:54 pm EDT | 2 minute read

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The highly anticipated layer 1 blockchain Monad officially launched its developer network (devnet) on March 14 after achieving an impressive 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) in internal test environments.

This TPS statistic and Monad’s goal to optimize and improve Ethereum’s functionality signal the project’s potential to address Ethereum scalability issues.

“This is an important milestone for our team. Load testing will continue before the phased release of the licensed testnet and public testnet,” Keone, CEO of Monad, told Cryptonews. “Monad represents a deep engineering effort to deliver a performant parallel EVM. We are excited to share the progress of our team in running EVM in parallel and entering performant state by the end of the year.”

Monad Devnet offers efficiency gains

Monad’s imminent arrival comes at a time when congestion and High fees continue to plague the network. The demand for scalable layer 1 solutions that can build on the solid foundation of Ethereum is higher than ever.

At the heart of Monad is a new Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) designed from the ground up for use parallelized execution and a pipeline architecture. This allows transaction processing to occur simultaneously, rather than sequentially, allowing for significantly higher throughput.

Developer experience is a priority for Monad

By remaining compatible with bytecode, Monad promises to ensure seamless integration with the ecosystem of Ethereum-based dApps and DeFi protocols. Developers will be able to port their decentralized applications to Monad without extensive rework.

A key advantage of the Monad architecture is the ability to finalize blocks immediately after generation, eliminating the long confirmation times that often frustrate Ethereum users. Monad is able to achieve this by decoupling execution from consensus.

Additionally, Monad implements a one-second blocking time to maximize throughput. This presents potential difficulties for node operators, however, as the hardware requirements are approximately double those of Ethereum.

Monad Labs attracts major investments

Venture capital firm Paradigm, a key backer of several major industry startups, is reportedly leading a fundraising of over 200 million dollars for Monad Labs. This round, which would follow a $19 million seed round in February 2023, places a $3 billion valuation on Monad Labs.

Paradigm has already committed $150 million and is evaluating interest from other investors from late 2023. A raise of this magnitude would mark the largest cryptocurrency-related funding round of 2024 to date, according to Crunchbase Web3 Tracker.

With the devnet now live, the next milestone is the launch of Monad’s public testnet, scheduled for Q2 2024. This will enable rigorous real-world testing of the network’s performance and capabilities.

The Monad mainnet is expected to follow later in the year. The project has generated excitement and anticipation in the Ethereum community, with developers eager to take advantage of Monad’s scalability.

If Monad can deliver on its promise of high throughput and instant finality while maintaining the security guarantees of Ethereum, it could very well provide the push that will finally bring cryptocurrencies to the masses.

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