The Monad Pulse #019
Monad Ecosystem Updates, Feb 26 - Mar 5
Note: This edition arrives a few days later than usual as we transition our publishing workflow. We’re back on track, #020 follows today.
This was a week where Monad’s DeFi layer started looking less like a roadmap and more like a marketplace. Private transactions went live, zero-fee trading launched across 20+ chains, regulated stablecoin infrastructure arrived, and Balancer v3 deployed its capital efficiency engine. Meanwhile, validators dealt with a Hetzner outage that took 10–13% of the network temporarily offline - and the incident sparked exactly the infrastructure diversity conversation that needed to happen.
Ecosystem Updates
Bungee Incognito Enables Private Transactions
Bungee launched Incognito on Monad, enabling users to transfer, swap, and bridge privately through one-click operations that don’t require deposits into mixers. The platform combines privacy with Monad’s 10,000 TPS and sub-second finality. Bungee Incognito works for stablecoins and ETH with compliance-ready features that don’t impose KYC flows on users.
The service is live on the Bungee app, which is used by 300,000+ active users, and will soon integrate into Bungee APIs powering 100+ wallets and apps including Coinbase, MetaMask, Gemini, Kraken, and Rabby.
Dream Offers Zero-Fee Trading Across 20+ Chains
Dream launched commission-free trading on Monad, enabling users to trade any token across 20+ chains with zero fees. The platform supports Solana, Ethereum, Base, MegaETH, Monad, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Berachain, BSC, HyperEVM, Bitcoin, XRP, Dogechain, Tron, Cardano, Sui, Stellar, Avalanche, and TON - with zero bridging, zero gas fees, and zero trading fees.
cbBTC Goes Live via Chainlink CCIP
Coinbase’s cbBTC launched on Monad powered by Chainlink CCIP, enabling users to utilize Bitcoin-backed assets in the Monad DeFi ecosystem. The integration potentially directs over $5 billion in Bitcoin capital to faster DeFi rails. Full details at blog.monad.xyz/blog/cbbtc-to-monad.
Brale Brings Regulated Stablecoin Infrastructure
Brale launched on Monad, enabling issuance and management of regulated stablecoins using the same API that supports 20+ other chains. On Monad, Brale enables ACH and wire onramps, ACH/wire/RTP offramps, virtual accounts with auto-mint, custodial wallets, and cross-chain liquidity for payroll, B2B payments, treasury, and global settlement. Read the announcement at brale.xyz/blog/monad-is-live.
Balancer v3 Deploys on Monad
Balancer v3 went live on Monad, bringing capital efficiency infrastructure to the network. The Balancer team was among the first to publicly declare support for deploying on Monad. With 10,000 TPS demanding capital efficiency, Balancer v3 provides essential liquidity infrastructure.
Neverland Surpasses $1M Total Revenue
Neverland crossed $1,000,000 in total revenue, returning 100% to the ecosystem in USDC through DUST locking rewards, DUST buybacks and burns, and DUST LP incentives.
Stablecoins Enable Merchant PSP Settlement
@HarryAlford3 published a blog post explaining how stablecoins fix slow settlement for payment service providers without forcing crypto on users. Read the full post at blog.monad.xyz/blog/merchant-psp.
Nitro Accelerator Reminder
Nitro, a three-month accelerator for builders on any chain, is accepting applications. Fifteen teams will receive $500,000 funding from top VCs, mentorship from industry-leading founders, and an elite builder cohort. Apply at nitroacc.xyz.
evm/accathon Hackathon
The first-ever Monad hackathon launched February 26 – March 12, beginning with a two-day in-person event at ETH Denver followed by a two-week online portion.
MON Token Unlock Scheduled March 24
The next MON token unlock is scheduled for March 24, 2026, releasing 170.21 million MON tokens ($3.9 million) for Validator Rewards, representing 0.17% of total supply.
MONAD_NINE Hard Fork Scheduled
The Monad Foundation announced planning for the MONAD_NINE hard fork, with testnet scheduled for March 10. The upgrade implements MIP-3 (linear memory costs), MIP-4 (reserve balance introspection), and MIP-5 (Fusaka EIP activation). Mainnet scheduling will follow a successful testnet fork.
Summary of Validator Discussions
Hetzner Outage Disrupts 10–13% of the Network
On February 26, validators reported that nodes had stopped syncing due to a global Hetzner infrastructure failure. At its peak, roughly 10% of the Monad mainnet validator set went offline. Most operators recovered within the hour through soft or hard resets, with the Monad team issuing guidance in real time. Link
Provider Concentration Debate: Is Hetzner a Risk?
The outage sparked a broader conversation about infrastructure diversity. While some validators defended Hetzner’s reliability based on years of production experience, others argued it has no place in a mainnet validator setup. The Monad Foundation noted that 13% of mainnet stake was on Hetzner and said it would be reviewing provider spread. Link
Biweekly Community Call & Validator Concentration Report
The February 27 biweekly validator call went ahead as scheduled. Community member mattboston shared a well-received infrastructure concentration report generated via Flipside Crypto’s MCP tooling, breaking down validator hosting by ISP and city. Link
Validator Info PR Backlog & Name/Logo Display Issue
A validator flagged that a GitHub pull request submitted in December 2025 to register their name and logo had been merged but wasn’t reflected on MonadVision. The Monad team confirmed a glitch in the deployment pipeline and manually pushed the data. Link
Community Input on the Next Version of monlog
Category Labs announced they are building the next version of monlog, the Monad node logging tool, and asked validators for feature suggestions. Validators requested configurable time windows for log filtering, visual trend charts for round advancement, queue backlog graphs, and a transactions-per-hour metric. One validator raised the point that 100% uptime being the default norm limits validators’ ability to compete on performance. Link
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