Monad reveals token name in newly released technical documents

Monad Labs released technical documents for its upcoming proof-of-stake blockchain, which detail that its native token will be called mon.

Monad is an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible blockchain that offers up to 10,000 transactions per second with a one-second block time. It claims to have optimized the way Ethereum works in order to provide greater throughput. “Monad materially improves on the performance of an EVM-compatible blockchain network, pioneering several innovations that will hopefully become standard in Ethereum in the years to come,” the documents say.

The high throughput may be more challenging for those who want to run a node. The hardware requirements for a full node suggest a two-terabyte blockchain, twice as large as for the main Ethereum blockchain. Plus, Monad suggests having a faster internet connection, a faster computer and greater RAM. 

The core difference with Monad is that it uses a pipelined architecture. This means rather than carrying out each process one after the other, it uses a staggered approach.

An example of pipelining provided in the documents. Image: FSU.

One key element of this is that nodes will decide on the order of transactions in blocks before those transactions are actually carried out, giving more time for each stage. This also means that finality will be achieved immediately within each block.

“It's worth emphasizing: finality occurs at consensus time; the official ordering of transactions is enshrined at this point, and the outcome is fully deterministic for any full node, who will generally execute the transactions for that new block in under 1 second,” the documents say.

Aligning with Ethereum

The documents acknowledge that elements such as pipelining exist in non-EVM blockchains such as Solana, Aptos and Sui — but they state that these features will now be available in an EVM-compatible way. 

Monad will also be bytecode compatible, making it straightforward for Ethereum developers to port their decentralized applications across to Monad.

The documents note that Monad can be characterized as a derivative of HotStuff — a scalable blockchain technology — and DiemBFT, the core technology of the shuttered Diem project.

Users of the Monad blockchain will use the mon token to pay for transactions to be included within blocks, known as a carriage cost, and for transactions to be executed.

Update: Monad has removed the token name from the documents for unspecified reasons.