Monad Quick Bites

• Monad is an Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 (L1) blockchain designed for high performance. It offers full bytecode compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing for easy porting of Ethereum applications.

• Monad introduces parallel execution and superscalar pipelining to the EVM, which allows for more efficient transaction processing.

• Monad boasts a throughput of 10,000 transactions per second (tps), 1-second block times, and 1-second finality. This means Monad is more scalable and cost-effective compared to other blockchains. Its goal is to offer the necessary infrastructure for decentralized apps to expand and reach a broader user base.

Read This First!

Before we continue, we suggest that you read references below first. It will give you the details and explain how Monad works

EVM Limitations and Problems

What is EVM?

• The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the runtime environment for executing smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. It's a decentralized Turing-complete virtual machine that allows anyone to execute arbitrary EVM bytecode. Every Ethereum node runs on the EVM to maintain consensus across the blockchain

• The EVM has various limitations that ultimately restrict its performance, creating bottlenecks and limiting its scalability.

  • Performance - The EVM's processing capacity is limited, leading to congestion during periods of high network activity. This can result in slower transaction processing and higher gas fees

  • Gas Costs - Executing smart contracts on the EVM consumes gas, and developers must pay for these gas costs. Complex or inefficient code can lead to high gas fees, making applications costly to use

  • Security Risks - The EVM allows for Turing-complete programming languages, which means developers can create highly complex and potentially unsafe smart contracts. This can lead to vulnerabilities and hacks

  • Limited Storage - Storing large amounts of data on the EVM can be expensive and inefficient. Developers must carefully manage storage to avoid running into storage limitations

  • Upgradability Challenges - Once deployed, smart contracts on the EVM are immutable. This means that if a developer wants to make changes, they often need to deploy a new contract, which can be complex and may result in data migration challenges

  • Interoperability - While Ethereum is a widely adopted platform, there are challenges when it comes to interoperability with other blockchains and legacy systems

Monad Protocol

What is Monad?

• Monad is a high-performance, Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 blockchain. It aims to offer the best of both worlds: portability and performance.

• Portability - Monad is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), meaning that Ethereum-based applications can be easily ported over without any code changes. It also offers full Ethereum RPC compatibility, allowing infrastructure like MetaMask and Etherscan to work seamlessly.

• Performance - Monad boasts impressive performance stats, including 10,000 transactions per second (tps), 1-second block times, and 1-second finality. These features make it capable of supporting a large number of users, all while keeping transaction costs low.

Monad Technical Architecture

• Monad introduces two key technical innovations:

  • Parallel execution allows multiple cores and threads to execute work simultaneously but commits the results in their original order.

  • Superscalar pipelining involves creating stages of work and executing them in parallel to address bottlenecks in state storage, transaction processing, and distributed consensus.

• These innovative architecture can be broken down further into several instances:

  • MonadDB - This custom database stores blockchain state without nesting one data structure within another. This approach improves efficiency and enables parallel execution of multiple transactions. It supports asynchronous I/O to prevent blocking operations. Additionally, it incorporates optimizations for I/O, such as bypassing the filesystem to reduce costly overhead. MonadDB, along with Parallel Execution, constitutes the Execution Aspect of Monad.

  • MonadBFT - is the consensus mechanism used by Monad Protocols to reach an agreement on payloads efficiently and ensure the network's security and integrity.

  • Deferred Execution - In Monad, execution is separated from consensus, which means that each node can independently execute transactions in block N while initiating consensus on block N+1.

  • Shared Mempool - it is designed to mitigate the challenges associated with block propagation and bandwidth requirements, possibly by optimizing the way transactions are stored and transmitted within the network.

  • Carriage Cost -In Monad, there is a specific fee for transferring a transaction over the network in a block, called the "carriage cost." This is different from the execution cost and plays a key role in preventing spam, representing the expense of using network resources.

  • Reserve Balance - In Monad, every address has two balances. The reserve balance covers the carriage cost, while the execution balance covers the cost of transaction execution. The reserve balance acts as a budget for orders that are currently in progress, ensuring that only paid transactions are included in blocks.

Innovative (Execution + Consensus) = Monad

• Decentralized applications (dApps) need cost-effective and efficient infrastructure to achieve their intended impact. To give you a perspective, if a single dApp has 1 million active users daily and each user performs 10 transactions per day, it would amount to a total of 10 million transactions daily, or 100 transactions per second (tps). However, currently, there is no EVM blockchain capable of supporting such a high transaction volume.

• By implementing robust consensus mechanics, parallel executions, and pipelining, Monad can redefine the EVM and achieve scalability to accommodate a larger user base..

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