The Monad Pulse #037
Monad Ecosystem Updates, July 2 - 9
Two stories this week, and they’re connected. Category Labs introduced Cadence, a multiple-concurrent-proposers consensus protocol targeting 100ms block intervals with MEV resistance as a structural design goal. And v0.15.0 shipped MIP-12 to testnet through a hard fork, cutting vote pace from 400ms to 300ms.
The July 2 validator sync also introduced two operational changes worth understanding: cohort-based rollouts for hard forks, and a longer activation window. Both change how upgrades will work from here.
Aave V3 crossed $75M in deposits within 24 hours. And the Foundation is collecting updated hardware specs from all operators.
Validator Action Required
Testnet Hard Fork Completed: MIP-12 Now Active
Monad testnet release v0.15.0 introduced a hard fork at round 43,821,000 on Thursday, July 9. The Foundation confirmed the fork completed and MIP-12 is active. Monitoring continues under the updated vote pace.
What shipped:
MIP-12 activation — consensus vote pace reduced from 400ms to 300ms
Database schema migration from MONAD007 to MONAD008
Block reward change from 25 MON to 18 MON
New
enable simulate v1flag for full nodes and RPC providers
If you weren’t on v0.15.0 at fork time: you won’t reach consensus and will require a hard reset to restore service.
Operators using monad-status were also instructed to download the updated script through the node status guide. Validators and full nodes not on v0.15.0 at the time of the hard fork were warned that they would not reach consensus and would require a hard reset to restore service.
v0.15.0 upgrade instructions | Release changelog
The Database Migration Is Irreversible
This is the detail that makes v0.15.0 more sensitive than a normal client release.
Existing validators and full nodes must run a one-time migration command after upgrading and before restarting the Monad process. Once that migration completes, you cannot roll back to the previous client version without reformatting the trie database disk and restoring from a previous snapshot.
New nodes started directly on v0.15.0 don’t need the migration step.
Two breaking changes, two different activation times. The database migration is client-side, it takes effect the moment you upgrade and run it. MIP-12 is protocol-level and only activated at the scheduled hard fork round. Treat the migration as immediate; the vote pace change waited for the network.
Monad Status Script Needs Updating
Operators using monad-status need to fetch the latest version from the documentation. Older versions won’t work correctly with v0.15.0. The updated script is backward compatible with earlier client versions, so you can update it before upgrading without issue.
Hardware Specs Requested From All Operators
Monad Foundation Engineering and Category Labs are collecting updated hardware information.
Requested: exact CPU model, hosting or on-prem status, provider and instance type where applicable, memory, and whether TEE is enabled in BIOS or UEFI.
Submit through the hardware intake form. The TEE question in particular suggests forward planning operators will want to be counted in.
Validator Sync: July 2, 2026
Hard Forks Will Use a Longer Rollout Window
Monad Foundation is giving operators one full week between public release and hard fork activation for breaking changes. That changes the usual cadence.
Instead of the normal testnet-one-week, mainnet-the-next rhythm, hard forks stretch across a longer schedule: testnet gets the public release first, then activates roughly one week later. Mainnet follows after testnet has run the change, with another week between mainnet release and mainnet activation.
For this release, testnet activation landed Thursday, July 9. Mainnet release and activation are planned across the following weeks, assuming testnet runs clean.
Cohort-Based Upgrades Are Being Introduced
Rather than asking every operator to upgrade simultaneously, validators are now grouped into cohorts by stake weight.
Category Labs and Monad Foundation nodes form cohort zero on testnet and upgrade before the public release. External validators split into later cohorts, cohort one upgrades first, then cohorts two and three after the Foundation confirms enough of the earlier cohort has upgraded safely.
The reasoning is sound: if an issue appears, it surfaces before a consensus-critical share of stake has moved to the new version. Staged rollout as a safety mechanism rather than a coordination convenience.
Cohort assignments are public. Operators can check a sheet showing validator name, validator ID, and assigned cohort for each release. Assignments may change as stake distribution shifts. Sheet-based for now; a dashboard may come later.
VDP Update Still Coming
The Validator Delegation Program update is still being prepared, the Foundation is waiting on final program details and frontend work. A dedicated VDP meeting is expected once it’s ready.
Ecosystem Updates
Category Labs Introduces Cadence
Category Labs introduced Cadence, a multiple-concurrent-proposers consensus protocol designed for shorter block intervals and stronger MEV resistance when paired with encrypted mempools.
The structural choice is the interesting part: Cadence makes proposers part of consensus rather than adding a separate aggregation phase. The fast path finalizes in three communication rounds even when some proposers are offline, with speculative finality after two rounds when no provable equivocation occurs.
Simulation results, using estimated network delays across Monad mainnet’s 200 globally distributed validators: 219ms average finality, 167ms average speculative finality. The stated target is 100ms block intervals, with transactions waiting an average of 50ms to enter a proposal.
Cadence builds on components already deploying on Monad, Deterministic RaptorCast and digest-based validator voting. This isn’t a greenfield redesign; it’s the next layer on work already in production.
Keone Hon Outlines the MEV-Resistance Roadmap
Keone Hon framed Monad’s near-term direction as MEV resistance alongside continued performance work, pointing to two Category Labs research tracks:
Cadence - multiple concurrent proposers, 100ms block times, ~200ms finality.
BTX - pre-trade privacy through encrypted mempool design.
Both build on Monad’s async execution, Deterministic RaptorCast, and modular consensus design. MEV resistance is being treated as a protocol-level design constraint rather than a mitigation layer bolted on later.
Kushal Babel Connects Async Execution to Cadence
Kushal Babel noted that Monad’s asynchronous execution work for an account-based VM is producing protocol-level benefits beyond transaction throughput - multiple-concurrent-proposers consensus, encrypted mempools, and extreme pipelining all draw on earlier execution design choices.
Architecture decisions compounding into unrelated capabilities years later is what separates a design from a feature list.
Cadence Draws External Commentary
Avichal Garg highlighted Cadence as part of Monad’s work toward an MEV-resistant decentralized L1 with pre-trade privacy and 100ms block times.
Four Pillars published a detailed analysis describing how Cadence embeds multiple proposers into consensus and uses extreme pipelining to decouple block intervals from network latency.
Read the Four Pillars analysis
Aave V3 Crosses $75M in Deposits on Monad
Aave V3 crossed $75 million in deposits within 24 hours of launch. Maple Finance also launched through syrupUSDC, a yield-bearing dollar asset backed by institutional borrowing activity, with syrupUSDC markets now live on Aave.
Initial assets: USDT0, USDC, GHO, USDe, mUSD, AUSD, WETH, cbBTC, wstETH, weETH, syrupUSDC, and sUSDe. Aave Labs deployed on behalf of Aave DAO, with risk analysis from LlamaRisk, additional support from TokenLogic, and Chainlink price feeds.
$75M in 24 hours is a serious first-day number for a lending market.
Agent Hub Launches for AI Agents on Monad
Monad introduced Agent Hub, one-click agent launch, ecosystem interaction through DApp skills, and campaigns built for AI agents. Live skills from Uniswap, Morpho, Balancer, Kuru Exchange, Clober DEX, Nad.fun, dev.fun, and BlinqFi.
NTT 2-of-2 Bridge Design for WETH
Keone Hon shared a technical breakdown of the NTT 2-of-2 bridge carrying WETH to Monad. The design requires signatures from both Wormhole and Axelar before WETH can be minted.
Keone framed the right question for evaluating any bridge: who has minting authority, and what would be required to mint fraudulently? A useful lens regardless of which bridge you’re assessing.
Metric PropAMM Reports $5B+ Volume Across Nine Chains
Metric disclosed that its routing infrastructure has processed more than $5 billion across nine chains over the last quarter — including more than $2 billion in the last month. Many trades on major EVM pairs may already have routed through Metric via DEX aggregators, despite the project operating in stealth.
MetaMask Money Account Discussion Goes Live
A live discussion featuring Monad, Veda Labs, and Steakhouse Financial covered the MetaMask Money Account structure, yield access, spending functionality, and Monad’s role in supporting the product.
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