Monad is a high-performance network looking to make the blockchain trilemma — the inherent challenge in achieving security, scalability, and decentralization simultaneously — a thing of the past. In 2025, many applications are looking to take advantage of its offerings for developers and users. This guide covers some of the most popular Monad projects on the market, from GameFi to DeFi.
KEY TAKEAWAYS ➤ Monad is a high-performance layer-1 blockchain, offering parallel execution, high throughput, and low fees. ➤ Monad hosts diverse and popular projects, including Bean Exchange, aPriori, Demask Finance, Mace, and Rug Rumble. ➤ Monad’s public testnet launched on Feb. 19, 2025, allowing developers and users to test applications. ➤ Unlike Ethereum, Monad achieves native scalability without relying on external layer-2 solutions.
Bean Exchange is a decentralized exchange natively built on the Monad blockchain. It offers users access to perpetual and spot markets, allowing them to make fast, low-cost trades. Bean Exchange aims to provide the best trading experience by combining advanced features with a gamified approach. By blending social finance elements, it has also created a community-driven environment.
• Oracle integration: Powered by Pyth Network for accurate price feeds.
• DEX trading: Offers both spot and perpetual markets.
• Liquidity providing: Utilizes BLP Pools to boost capital.
• Gamified interactions: Users can complete specific tasks or missions to earn rewards.
aPriori is a liquid staking platform built on the Monad blockchain. It combines Miner Extractable Value (MEV) strategies with liquid staking to potentially increase returns for validators and stakers. aPriori’s mission is to decentralize Monad’s network, enhance the user experience by reducing gas fees, and provide sustainable incentives for validators.
• Liquid staking: Users can stake $MON and receive $aprMON tokens.
• Combined rewards: The platform combines both staking and MEV rewards.
• Order flow auction (OFA): Creates a structured MEV marketplace that reduces spamming.
• Partial-block auctions: Allows block builders to construct only the top portion of blocks from searcher-submitted bundles.
Demask Finance is an automated market maker (AMM) protocol designed for trading between non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and ERC20 tokens on the Monad blockchain. The platform’s liquidity pools help establish more consistent pricing for NFTs, addressing the challenge of subjective valuation. By eliminating unnecessary intermediaries and offering liquidity pools, Demask enables faster and more efficient NFT trading.
• Fungible to non-fungible trading: Supports trading pairs of ERC-721, ERC-1155, or ERC-404 NFTs against both ETH and ERC-20 tokens.
• Liquidity pools: Users can create and own liquidity pools for their NFT collections.
• Low fees: Offers trading with low gas fees and zero platform fees, making it accessible to new users and small-scale investors.
• Royalties support: Implements ERC-2981 standard for automatic royalty payments to NFT creators.
Mace is a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator on the Monad blockchain. It aggregates or combines liquidity from multiple sources within the Monad ecosystem. By identifying optimal trading paths and distributing orders across various pools Mace improves price efficiency for users. Mace uses a Rust-based backend system, which performs computation-intensive operations off-chain to reduce on-chain gas fees and improve transaction speed.
• Hybrid liquidity: Mace incorporates off-chain liquidity from centralized exchange market makers using a Request for Quote (RFQ) system.
• Points program: Mace implements a rewards system to cultivate an active community by incentivizing user engagement.
• Liquidity aggregation: Mace integrates liquidity from multiple sources within the Monad ecosystem.
• Market maker collaborations: To guarantee tight spreads and effective trade execution, Mace collaborates with professional market makers.
Rug Rumble is a game built on the Monad blockchain. It combines elements of DeFi, meme coins, and competitive gameplay. Players create custom decks using cards with various traits or features. The goal is to outmaneuver and defeat your opponent using your deck’s unique characteristics. The platform also integrates meme coins to add a speculative aspect to the game.
• Gamified DeFi: Blends competitive gameplay with decentralized finance (DeFi), letting players wager meme coins in battles.
• PvP: Players bet tokens against each other; the winner gains tokens funded by selling the loser’s meme coins, directly boosting their position.
• Memery Vault: A shared vault collects portions of stakes, distributing rewards at epoch-end.
• Market reflection: Simulates real-world meme coin market dynamics by shifting liquidity from weaker tokens to stronger ones.
Monad projects | Purpose | Token | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Bean Exchange | Spot and perpetuals exchange | BEAN | Bean Exchange is a spot and perpetual exchange with user-owned liquidity and farming capabilities. |
aPriori | Liquid staking | aprMON | aPriori is a liquid staking platform with a dual-earning mechanism for users. Users earn from staking and MEV. |
Demask Finance | NFT AMM | N/A | Demask Finance is an automated market maker that creates liquid markets for non-fungible tokens. |
Mace | DEX aggregator | N/A | Mace is a DEX aggregator that sources DEX and CEX liquidity and uses off-chain liquidity to reduce gas fees. |
Rug Rumble | GameFi | N/A | Rug Rumble is a GameFi platform that allows meme coin communities to compete against each other to earn rewards. |
Monad is a high-performance blockchain that is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Unlike many Ethereum-compatible blockchains, Monad rebuilds the EVM from the ground up. This enables it to support the following features that do not come with Ethereum natively:
Monad achieves native scalability, avoiding reliance on external scaling solutions. On the other hand, Ethereum relies significantly on external layer-2 scaling solutions like rollups and sidechains.
Monad is not Firedancer for Ethereum in any way, shape, or form. This tweet implies that Ethereum, due to ego or an inability to make decisions, would refuse to use Monad’s codebase. However, Ethereum cannot use Monad, just as it cannot use Solana.Monad is an alternative Layer… https://t.co/KCHlHHkewl
— Fede’s intern 🥊 (@fede_intern) February 22, 2025
Monad is not a layer-2 solution; it is its own layer-1 network. It boasts significant improvements over the Ethereum codebase while being compatible with it.
Features | Monad | Ethereum |
---|---|---|
Transaction execution | Parallel | Single threaded (sequential) |
Transaction throughput | Up to 10,000 TPS | ~13-15 TPS |
Block times | 1 second | 12 seconds |
Transaction fees | Near-zero | High and variable |
The public Monad Testnet launched on Feb. 19, 2025. This launch marked a significant milestone for the project, allowing developers and users to test the network’s capabilities before the planned mainnet release.
Monad testnet is livePrimarily, this is just the beginningFor most developers, this is the first time that they can interact with an extremely performant, cheap, decentralized EVM environmentThe start of Monad’s public testnet phase is a call to all developers to come…
— Keone Hon ⨀ (@keoneHD) February 19, 2025
To interact with early-stage projects, navigate to the Monad faucet to receive testnet Monad tokens.
The testnet provides a risk-free environment for developers to build and refine applications. It also allows the community to interact with early-stage apps and provide feedback. Users can gain early access to Monad projects for potential airdrops.
In terms of a possible Monad airdrop, note that there has been no official confirmation of such an event. If you’re keen to get ahead and ensure future eligibility, our guide covers likely criteria and how to claim the Monad airdrop, if the time comes.
The Monad blockchain has hit the ground running, attracting a multitude of developers and users. This heightened interest has led to a plethora of interesting projects and applications, ranging from GameFi to DeFi, NFTs, and other sectors. You can interact with these applications by using the Monad faucet and testnet. Always do your own research and exercise caution, even when using a testnet with reduced risks.
Some of the top projects on the Monad blockchain in 2025 include Bean Exchange, aPriori, Mace, and Rug Rumble. These projects range from NFT AMMs, to liquid staking protocols, to GameFi.
Monad is a high-performance blockchain that is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It supports a number of features that do not come with Ethereum natively including high throughput, fast block times, and low gas fees. The Monad Testnet launched in February 2025.
There is no confirmed Monad airdrop as of mid-March 2025. However, many in the crypto community believe the project will announce an airdrop for early adopters at some point. You can prepare for this possible eventuality by interacting with the Monad Testnet.
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