Venture Capital giant Paradigm is leading the charge in a monumental $225 million funding round for an emerging blockchain network, an ambitious newcomer striving to rival the stature of the Ethereum chain. Other prominent entities pouring their support into this burgeoning project include revered venture capital establishments Electric Capital and Greenoaks.
Monad Labs is the cutting-edge firm orchestrating this blockchain venture, emboldened to take on not only Ethereum but other established colossi such as Solana and the Layer 1 blockchain protocol Sui.
The central thrust of Monad’s ambitious endeavor rests on the complete reconstruction of the Ethereum blockchain. However, the firm aims to keep intact the ability to craft and execute smart contracts. This audacious project aspires to elevate transaction speeds, accommodate larger transaction volumes, and make significant reductions in associated costs, all in relation to the pre-existing networks.
A standout feature of Monad’s venture is its commitment to maintaining compatibility with Ethereum’s essential programming infrastructure, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Developers can seamlessly transition applications engineered for Ethereum to this novel blockchain, allowing for an effortless switchover.
Keone Hon, the visionary founder of Monad, revealed in an exclusive dialogue with Fortune that the firm has dedicated a substantial two-year period towards crafting its distinctive blockchain solution.
Hon further spots the light on how Monad Labs distinguishes itself by its full-fledged backing of the EVM bytecode standard. The wider industry employs this standard in the development of decentralized applications, or “dApps”, on a myriad of platforms encompassing Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain, and Optimism.
In a revealing statistic, Electric Capital managing partner Avichal Garg pointed out that an overwhelming 90% of developers employed in numerous crypto ecosystems focus solely on EVM chains. This demonstrates the market’s irresistible attraction towards EVM compatibility, a point underlined by a recent report released by Electric Capital. Despite Monad not pursuing a comprehensive redesign of its programming language in comparison to other blockchain entities, the firm benefits greatly from the pervasive utilization and familiarity with EVM.
Looking into the future, Monad is preparing to commence its mainnet before the year’s end and anticipates an imminent launch of a testnet. Conversely, specifics regarding its native token launches remain veiled.
While underlining the key priority for mainstream adoption, Monad founder Keone Hon suggests that the likely initial application for Monad will be in high-frequency trading. This is informed by his extensive experience at Jump Trading, a firm acclaimed for its analytical and research-focused trading approach.
Hon also underscores the imperative for a highly efficient blockchain to facilitate exchanges on the scale of Nasdaq or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, entities that process transactions on an astounding daily scale, ranging from millions to billions.
Furthermore, Hon points out the immense potential of a high-capacity, low-cost blockchain for a myriad of applications, including gaming. For instance, blockchain-based games such as RuneScape necessitate frequent updating of player statistics which in turn demands lightning-fast transactions at minuscule costs.
As a backdrop to these developments, Ethereum’s 1-Day Chart exhibits a downward price trend with ETH trading at around $3,497, exhibiting a plunge by nearly 5% in the last 24 hours.