Validator Action Required
Mainnet Begins MIP-8 Phase A Migration
Monad mainnet also began its transition toward page-aware storage through release v0.15.2.
Phase A consists of two steps: installing v0.15.2 and completing the dual database migration.
Monad Foundation estimated around 10 minutes of downtime during the process. Validators were divided into five cohorts, while full-node, RPC, and archive providers could migrate independently.
Cohorts 1 through 3 were initially cleared to proceed before Monad Foundation temporarily paused new migrations after some operators encountered issues. Validators already in the middle of the process were told to continue.
Monad Foundation later cleared Cohorts 1, 2, and 3 to resume. No subsequent clearance for Cohorts 4 and 5 was included in this week’s updates.
Migration details in the MIP-8 operator documentation
Testnet Completes MIP-8 Phase C Rollout
MIP-8 page-encoded storage is active on Monad testnet, allowing operators to decommission the older slot-based database timeline.
Nodes had temporarily maintained both slot and page databases during the migration. Since the MIP-8 hard fork, the page timeline has become the active state database, making the legacy timeline unnecessary.
Monad Foundation rolled Phase C out in three validator cohorts, with all cohorts eventually cleared to proceed. Full-node, RPC, and archive operators could complete the procedure independently.
Nodes that were hard reset after activation do not need to perform the same decommissioning procedure.
Instructions in the Phase C migration guide
Ecosystem Updates
Monad Foundation Concludes Early Investor Liquidity Program
Monad Foundation completed a liquidity program offering to purchase locked MON from certain early investors.
Any MON purchased through the program remains subject to its existing four-year lockup. Purchase prices included a discount reflecting those transfer restrictions, and aggregate consideration under the program was capped at $60 million.
Monad Foundation said nearly all investors approached declined to participate, and the program has now concluded.
Monad Foundation Joins Agentic Payments Alliance
Monad Foundation joined the Agentic Payments Alliance, a group of 26 founding members working on standards and infrastructure for AI-driven commerce.
Participants span payments, stablecoins, blockchain infrastructure, compliance, and AI, including Visa, Mastercard, Circle, Fireblocks, Chainalysis, Rain, Uniswap, Solana Foundation, and Monad Foundation.
Initial work will cover shared research, agent identity and authorization standards, fraud controls, and regulatory questions around autonomous payments.
Four Pillars Publishes Report on Monad’s General-Purpose L1 Strategy
Four Pillars published a report examining Monad’s strategy as a high-performance general-purpose Layer 1 rather than a chain built around a single first-party application.
Researcher Calvin described Monad as a large-scale test of whether concentrating DeFi, payments, trading, consumer applications, and capital formation on one shared state can outperform increasingly specialized blockchain architectures.
The report also reviewed Monad’s ecosystem development, including its community funnel, founder programs, testnet activity, trading markets, lending, liquid staking, stablecoins, RWAs, and institutional integrations.
Trading data highlighted a shift toward perpetuals during July. According to figures cited in the report, 30-day perpetual volume reached $1.6 billion compared with $1.3 billion in spot volume. Perpl crossed $1 billion in cumulative volume and recorded more than $800 million during the month.
On the capital side, the report cited Aave deposits above $500 million, stablecoin supply above $550 million, and more than $430 million in active RWA market cap.
Keone Hon responded by reaffirming Monad’s general-purpose strategy, arguing that neutral infrastructure allows DeFi, payments, fintech, asset issuance, and consumer applications to compete within the same network rather than around an anchor tenant.
Perpl Trading Activity Continues to Build
Perpetual trading activity on Perpl continued to rise through August, with the latest DefiLlama chart showing open interest climbing to roughly $16 million.
Daily perpetual volume has also moved materially higher from June levels, with several recent sessions above $50 million and peaks above $100 million.
Cero Introduces Spending-Based Credit Profile
Cero introduced its consumer finance product built around the Cero Score.
Users spend through a Cero card and build a score ranging from 0 to 1,000. Higher scores unlock rewards and contribute toward future access to credit.
Early access starts with email registration and a unique Cero handle, which also functions as a referral code.
Cadence and BTX Pair Transparency With Pre-Trade Privacy
Monad continued outlining how Cadence and BTX fit into its approach to fair onchain markets.
The model separates transparency of rules and outcomes from privacy of transaction intent before execution. A comparison shared during the week likened the structure to poker, where the rules and pot are public but individual hands remain hidden.
Cadence addresses transaction ordering through multiple concurrent proposers, while BTX is designed to keep transactions encrypted before inclusion. Together, the two Category Labs research efforts are aimed at reducing the ability to observe and react to transactions before execution.
CRSH Market Ranks Eighth by Weekly Prediction Market Volume
CRSH Market recorded $6.46 million in seven-day trading volume, placing it eighth among the 12 prediction markets highlighted in a DefiLlama comparison.
Those 12 platforms generated approximately $3.2 billion in combined weekly volume. Kalshi led with $2.52 billion, followed by Polymarket at $537 million and Opinion at $79.08 million.
DefiLlama listed 117 prediction-market platforms overall at the time of the comparison.
Keone Hon Details Anchorage Digital Support for Monad
Keone Hon discussed Monad Foundation’s work with Anchorage Digital across custody, institutional access, staking, and validator delegation.
Monad Foundation custodies a significant portion of its MON holdings with Anchorage Digital. Keone also pointed to Anchorage’s trading infrastructure as a route for institutional participants accessing MON and moving between yield-bearing assets and fiat.
Anchorage supported Monad staking from mainnet launch after implementing the network’s staking specifications. Its validator-agnostic model has also supported Monad Foundation’s Validator Delegation Program, which Keone said currently delegates to more than 165 validators.
He described the launch process as smooth, with Anchorage providing staking support from day one.
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