Monad

Mission & Key Concepts

Monad is a new proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain and decentralized computation platform that combines the best of performance and portability.

We're building a blockchain of the future to enable useful, powerful, world-scale decentralized applications that will allow people to control their money, identity, and data.

Monad offers throughput that is orders of magnitude higher than any existing smart contract blockchain, supporting 10,000 smart contract transactions per second (tps) through algorithmic improvements to virtual machine design and Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus mechanisms.

Monad delivers this performance while maintaining full compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) bytecode - the standard widely used for smart contract implementation - and consequently with existing Ethereum dApps and tooling.

We are addressing a challenging problem with urgent and clear market need. Demand for decentralized computation from new, increasingly complex apps as well as new crypto users is snowballing. But existing systems have extremely limited capacity. 

Our Vision

Our long-term vision is to accelerate the revolutionary power of decentralized apps by offering a world-class decentralized computing platform.

We believe that decentralized computing is an essential innovation - both to facilitate censorship-resistant stores of value, and as a medium for supporting powerful, composable apps with open APIs.

While these apps are fairly simple right now, they are rapidly becoming more advanced and useful with growth facilitated by open APIs. New apps can call functions on existing apps to leverage existing functionality and build more complex and intuitive behaviors. We’ve seen the rapid growth of decentralized finance tools (exchanges, banking, payments/remittance), collectibles (on-chain art; event ticketing), and gaming. Our view is that this is only the tip of the iceberg for what is possible.

However, growth in the dApp space is fundamentally dependent on improvements in the underlying blockchains which are extremely slow by today’s computing standards.

Significantly higher throughput is needed for true mass adoption.

Monad's ultimate mission is to support the growth of the crypto ecosystem by delivering this much-needed performance.

Current Challenges

Decentralized computation against a shared global state is incredibly powerful, but it’s also challenging, because computation throughput is limited to the computational capacity of a single server. In particular, the computational capacity is limited by the capacity of the server to respond to arbitrary transactions involving a variety of previously uploaded programs, which for each transaction requires loading some or all of the state associated with that program, as well as committing any state changes upon completion. Monad is addressing severe bottlenecks in state access and computational throughput by building hyper-optimized methods for accessing and storing state, and by building a system that properly pipelines transactions, taking into account state access and computation costs to maximize the system’s output.

Culture & Values

We have ambitious goals. To achieve them, we will face a number of engineering challenges in software and hardware as we optimize a stack-based virtual machine, a storage layer maintaining state for millions of accounts, a consensus mechanism for keeping thousands of nodes (distributed across the world) in sync, and a variety of components and standards that support a thriving ecosystem of decentralized apps.

We believe that you will push your limits as part of our team. You will tackle some of the most difficult performance engineering and system design problems, and you will work with amazing teammates in a fast-moving field.

Values

• Intellectual curiosity
• Honesty
• Data-driven mindset
• Low egos
• High leverage on our time

History & Achievements

Monad Labs is an early-stage, venture-backed tech startup founded in 2022.

We have roots in Jump Trading, where our founders worked together for 7 years building low-latency HFT trading systems, and later contributing to R&D at Jump Crypto in 2021. This was the genesis of Monad — synthesizing learnings from HFT, as well as some new ideas, to build the most performant and robust smart-contract blockchain possible.

With Monad, we apply our expertise in low-latency programming, compiler optimization, systems engineering, cryptography, and graph theory to substantially advance the performance and scalability of decentralized computation.

Funding

Monad raised $19M seed round, led by Dragonfly Capital and with participation from Lemniscap, Placeholder, Shima Capital, Finality Capital, and Credibly Neutral, as well as over 70 angels, including Cobie, Hasu, 0xMaki, and a number of other leaders in the space.

Core Team

• Keone Hon, Co-Founder
• James Hunsaker, Co-Founder
• Eunice Giarta, COO / Head of BD

Benefits

Be a part of real blockchain innovation.

• Tackle challenging problems on VM optimization and distributed systems
• High-impact work with the potential to revolutionize decentralized computation
• Practical applications of theoretical solutions
• Combination of high-level system design and low-level optimization
• Small, cross-functional team at an early-stage, venture-backed company
• Delivery-minded mentality: iterate fast, ship fast, innovate fast

Why work with us

• Huge opportunity. EVM is ubiquitous but existing EVM-compatible chains are very slow. Monad’s core innovations offer devs the best of both worlds (portability and performance) and are a game-changer for mass user adoption in crypto.
• The right team. Pushing the limits of decentralized computation requires unique low-latency engineering talent. Our team has nearly ten years of experience staying at the top of brutally efficient TradFi markets by building ultra-low-latency distributed systems for high-frequency trading. We’re assembling a similarly world-class team in BD, Growth, DevRel, and Community. Check out our team here.
• Culture. We’re a lean team working closely together to achieve very ambitious goals. We are united in our belief that we will completely change the future of decentralized computation, and we take pride in our culture of collaboration and low ego. As an early member of our team, you’ll help continue to shape our culture.
• Impactful work. Your work will be deeply impactful, making decentralized computation orders of magnitude cheaper and more plentiful, ultimately paving the way for new dapps that improve many people’s lives.
• Compensation. You’ll receive a very competitive salary and equity package.
• Resources and growth. We’re well-capitalized, with backing from leading venture funds like Dragonfly and Placeholder, and from leaders in the space like Cobie and Hasu. We keep a lean team, and this is a rare opportunity to join. You’ll learn a lot and grow as our company scales.

Monad Labs’ benefits include unlimited and encouraged paid time off; health coverage; home office equipment stipend; monthly wellness/fitness stipend; and 10 company-observed holidays.

We think you’ll enjoy working with us, and that you’ll find the work to be extremely impactful and challenging.