Monad’s Mainnet Launch: Market Surge, Record-Breaking Coinbase Sale, and Tokenomics Debate

The highly anticipated Layer1 public blockchain, Monad, officially launched its mainnet on Monday, simultaneously initiating the airdrop of its native $MON token. Following an initial dip to approximately $0.02, strong buying pressure swiftly propelled the token’s price to around $0.0365. This represents a significant 46% increase from its Coinbase public sale price of $0.025, signaling robust market confidence in the nascent project.

Monad’s mainnet debut also marked the successful conclusion of the first public sale on Coinbase’s innovative new token issuance platform. The sale garnered overwhelming interest, attracting nearly 86,000 participants from over 70 countries within a single week. The committed capital soared to an impressive $269 million, exceeding the original target allocation of $187.5 million by a remarkable 1.43 times.

According to internal investigations conducted by Coinbase, the majority of participants were driven by a long-term investment strategy rather than short-term speculative trading, highlighting a foundational belief in Monad’s potential.

Clarifying “Flipping”: Addressing Community Concerns

Ahead of the token distribution, the community expressed concerns regarding Coinbase’s explanation of its token sale mechanism. The platform had initially cautioned that immediately selling or exchanging purchased tokens (a practice commonly known as “flipping”) could lead to reduced allocations in subsequent sale rounds.

This warning prompted anxiety among some users, who questioned whether simply withdrawing their $MON to the blockchain for participation in mainnet DApps would be misconstrued as selling or exchanging. In response, a Coinbase spokesperson promptly clarified that “transferring $MON to the blockchain to engage with the ecosystem will not, in itself, be penalized,” effectively assuaging market fears and fostering transparency.

With the mainnet now live, the Monad ecosystem is fully operational, boasting extensive support from leading cryptocurrency wallets and applications, including MetaMask, Phantom, Curve, Uniswap, and stablecoins like USDC and USDT. [IMAGE-PLACEHOLDER-1]

The Monad team describes their platform as a “high-performance public chain” capable of supporting diverse application scenarios such as DeFi, payments/stablecoins, and high-speed institutional transactions. A key differentiator is Monad’s Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility, which aims to extend the capabilities of EVM to its next phase of growth and adoption.

Keone Hon, co-founder of Monad, articulated the project’s vision: “The public launch of the Monad mainnet signifies a crucial step towards democratizing high-performance blockchain infrastructure. Developers should not be forced to choose between speed, security, and user experience. Our goal is to deliver all three, without requiring developers to abandon their existing tools and languages.”

Tokenomics Under Scrutiny: Team Allocation Sparks Debate

A critical point of discussion among investors revolves around Monad’s tokenomics. According to the project documentation, the total supply of $MON is set at 100 billion tokens. Approximately 10.8% is currently unlocked and in circulation, comprising 7.5% released via the Coinbase public sale (at an issuance price of $0.025) and 3.3% distributed through airdrops. The remaining token distribution is as follows: 27% allocated to the Monad team; 19.7% to investors; 4% to the foundation treasury; and 38.5% earmarked for ecosystem development.

However, this allocation has sparked some debate on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), with some voices questioning the team’s nearly 30% share, suggesting it is “disproportionately high” compared to industry norms. [IMAGE-PLACEHOLDER-2]

As of recent Coinbase data, $MON boasts a 24-hour trading volume of approximately $450 million, a market capitalization of around $394 million, and a fully diluted valuation (FDV) reaching $3.6 billion.