The Monad Pulse #041
Monad Ecosystem Updates, July 30 - August 6
Two Ubuntu kernel builds can silently prevent monad-bft from starting, check your kernel version before anything else this week.
Beyond that: Category Labs released Mera, a passkey-based account library that removes recovery phrases and smart contract deployment from the account creation flow entirely. Monad ranked third by DeFi active TVL behind Ethereum and Solana. Perpetuals volume approached $500 million, up from under $20 million in March. And Keone Hon named fair trade execution as the next unresolved frontier for open financial networks.
Validator Action Required
Avoid Ubuntu Kernel Builds 6.8.0-136 and 6.8.0-137
Monad Foundation strongly recommends operators avoid Ubuntu 24.04 kernel versions 6.8.0-136-generic and 6.8.0-137-generic. A bug in these builds can prevent monad-bft from starting, producing:
failed to create buffer ring: Os { code: 22, kind: InvalidInput, message: "Invalid argument" }Check your current kernel:
uname -rIf you’re already on either affected version: downgrade to 6.8.0-134-generic and reboot.
To prevent automatic installation of the affected builds: block them through APT preferences.
Monad Foundation and Category Labs are working toward a resolution and monitoring future Linux kernel releases for a fix. Until then, this is a check-now item, not a wait-and-see one — a kernel update landing automatically overnight is exactly the kind of thing that takes a node down without warning.
Ecosystem Updates
Category Labs Releases Mera for Passkey-Based Accounts
Category Labs released Mera, a free TypeScript library that lets users create a blockchain account with a passkey in two steps.
Mera derives secret key material from the WebAuthn passkey process and uses it to create a standard blockchain account. Users do not need to record a recovery phrase, deploy a smart contract account, or rely on a third party in the signing process.
Developers can integrate the library into applications on any chain. A live demonstration lets users create a passkey, derive an account, receive test funds, and trade fictional assets.
More technical details are available in the Mera introduction.
Monad Ranks Third by DeFi Active TVL
Monad ranked third among blockchains by DeFi active TVL in the shared market snapshot.
Ethereum led with $2.047 billion, followed by Solana with $484.54 million. Monad recorded $367.16 million, placing it ahead of the remaining networks included in the ranking.
Monad App Hub Passes 130 Listed Applications
More than 130 applications are now listed in the Monad App Hub.
Listings span DeFi, trading, payments, consumer applications, AI agents, infrastructure, gaming, and other categories across the ecosystem.
Monad Announces Inaugural Open Summit
Monad announced Open, its inaugural ecosystem summit, scheduled for October 6 in Singapore ahead of Token2049.
Registration is available through the event page.
Monad Perpetuals Volume Approaches $500 Million
Perpetual trading activity on Monad continued rising through July and into early August.
Volume increased from below $20 million in March to nearly $500 million in the latest period shown. Growth accelerated during July, with several consecutive readings above $290 million before the latest move toward the $500 million level.
Keone Hon Frames Fair Trade Execution as the Next Open-Network Challenge
Keone Hon shared his view on the development of open financial networks, beginning with Bitcoin’s role in payments and store-of-value use cases and Ethereum’s expansion into smart contracts, stablecoins, DeFi, and real-world assets.
He argued that the next major open network will need to combine scale with fair trade execution so global markets can operate onchain without applications rebuilding MEV protections independently.
Martín Casais noted that many applications currently implement MEV defenses at the application level because base layers do not provide native ordering protections. Keone agreed that transaction fairness remains an unresolved area and described it as the next technical frontier.
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