Monad: From $3B to 📉 Ouch!

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So, Monad. Let’s talk about Monad. This blockchain, you see, was supposed to be the answer to everything. Faster than Ethereum, fully compatible with everything already on Ethereum, and backed by enough venture capital to buy a small island nation. They raised $244 million – enough money to make Midas himself reconsider his life choices. It promised to be the “Solana killer” for the Ethereum crowd. Honestly, the promises were becoming a bit…silly. 🤔

They launched with a fanfare that would make a royal wedding look understated. There was a token sale, an airdrop (which caused a bit of a digital dust-up, apparently), and lots and lots of excited chatter. Nearly 150,000 people were poking around in the early days, processing transactions, and generally kicking the tires. Problem is, like a New Year’s resolution, the enthusiasm didn’t last. 🗓️

  • The MON token, which briefly flirted with $0.05, has now taken a tumble, currently hovering around $0.02. That’s a 60% drop, folks. Ouch.
  • The initial burst of daily users has…subsided. Turns out, free tokens only get you so far. Who knew?
  • Total Value Locked (TVL) is a modest $235 million. Considering the hype, that’s like building the Taj Mahal and then having ten people visit.

The Backstory (and How It All Went Sideways)

Monad was dreamed up by some very clever people from Jump Trading, a firm that’s currently having a bit of a legal kerfuffle. They essentially re-engineered the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to make it faster and more efficient. They made claims about 10,000 transactions per second (TPS), sub-second block times, the works. The testnet looked promising. It processed billions of transactions and attracted a decent crowd. Seems they spent a lot of time building something that isn’t… particularly captivating when it’s actually out there.

The launch, on November 24th, 2025, went smoothly enough. Coinbase was on board, USDC was supported, and for a glorious few days, it seemed like they might actually pull it off. Then reality hit. 💥

You see, the problem with airdrops and token sales is that people tend to…sell their tokens. Shocker, I know. And with so much circulating supply, there was a bit of a flood. A little profit-taking, a touch of panic, and suddenly the price started looking less like a rocket ship and more like a gently descending elevator.

Where are the users?

The early surge in activity was largely fueled by airdropped tokens and incentives. Once the free money dried up, so did the enthusiasm. Now, the daily fees are barely scraping $5,000. That’s…not a lot when you’re trying to run a blockchain. It’s less than I spend on coffee in a week. Seriously. ☕

And here’s the kicker: in a sea of EVM-compatible blockchains (Base, Arbitrum, Blast, Scroll…the list goes on), Monad hasn’t quite managed to differentiate itself. It’s fast, sure, but so are a lot of others. It’s starting to look a lot like just another “EVM L1” destined for the blockchain graveyard. 👻

People are already whispering about “ghost chain” status. Which, let’s be honest, is a rather unkind thing to say about something that cost $244 million and a lot of very smart people’s time.

The key takeaway? Building a successful blockchain is hard. Very hard. It requires more than just clever technology and deep pockets. It requires a compelling reason for people to actually use it. And, as Monad is discovering, that’s the hardest part of all.

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2025-12-25 15:33