Breaking through the “trilemma”, Monad realizes high-speed parallelization of EVM Layer 1 public chain

As an emerging Layer 1 smart contract platform, Monad aims to provide developers with an efficient, secure, and cross-chain environment, making the creation of decentralized applications more convenient and flexible.
———— Monad Team

At present, how to ensure decentralization, security and scalability at the same time has become a key challenge facing the industry. To address this problem, Monad has built a Layer 1 smart contract platform compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) based on the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Through its unique parallel architecture and excellent performance, Monad provides a new technical solution, striving to find a better solution to the "trilemma" of blockchain.

Monad, a high-performance Layer 1 public chain compatible with EVM

The Monad project was founded in 2022 by a group of American computer engineers with a background in high-frequency trading (HFT). It is committed to building a Layer 1 public chain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Through parallel execution and superscalar pipeline architecture, Monad achieves a high transaction throughput of 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) and supports 1-second block finality. The Monad project adopts a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism to ensure decentralization and censorship resistance. Although the Monad mainnet has not yet been launched, nearly a hundred protocols and dApps have promised to build on it. Its first partner , LayerZero, will help Monad achieve cross-chain interoperability, and projects such as Pyth Network and Wormhole will also provide strong support for its ecosystem, further enhancing the network's connectivity and cross-platform benefit delivery.

Breaking through the “trilemma”, Monad realizes high-speed parallelization of EVM Layer 1 public chain

Insight into Monad technology advantages and project architecture

By making algorithmic improvements and architectural modifications in four important areas ( MonadBFT, deferred execution, parallel execution, and MonadDb ), Monad has built a design that can fundamentally improve the performance of the EVM. This design may become the standard on Ethereum in the near future, promote the further development of the blockchain industry, and provide developers with a more efficient construction environment.

MonadBFT consensus mechanism

Monad introduces the MonadBFT Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus mechanism based on HotStuff , which achieves fast block finality through optimized pipeline processes. This mechanism reduces the number of consensus communication rounds from the traditional three to two, significantly improving the throughput and overall performance of the network. In this mechanism, the leader node initiates a block proposal, which is reviewed by the validator node. If more than two-thirds of the validators agree, the block is confirmed. If a consensus cannot be reached within the scheduled time, the validator will send a timeout message to form a timeout proof, which effectively prevents system stagnation and ensures the security and stability of the network.

Improving Scalability: Deferred Execution

In most blockchains, reaching consensus requires verifying transactions and updating status at the same time, which can be a relatively slow process. Monad uses a delayed execution strategy to separate transaction execution from the consensus process. Nodes first reach a consensus on the order of transactions, and then execute transactions independently. This approach significantly reduces the risk caused by malicious nodes. In addition, since execution no longer depends on the completion of consensus, the efficiency of the overall network is improved.

Advantages of Deferred Execution

Faster consensus : Since nodes do not need to execute each transaction individually, consensus is reached faster.
Higher Scalability : Monad is able to handle higher transaction volumes due to the reduced amount of work during the consensus phase.
Greater efficiency : By separating order agreement from actual execution, resources are used more efficiently.

Breaking through the “trilemma”, Monad realizes high-speed parallelization of EVM Layer 1 public chain

High throughput parallel execution mechanism

Monad's parallel execution significantly improves performance through delayed execution. Instead of executing transactions immediately after consensus is reached, independent transactions are analyzed and identified for parallel processing. Using an optimistic execution strategy, the system temporarily executes transactions in parallel, detects conflicts, and then re-executes the problematic transactions. Despite parallel processing, the final state update is still performed in sequence to ensure blockchain consistency. Unlike traditional sequential blockchains, Monad optimizes transaction processing speed by utilizing multi-core architectures, supporting up to 10,000 transactions per second. Through superscalar pipelining and parallel execution, additional overhead is kept to a minimum even in the case of conflicts.

Advantages of parallel execution

Improved throughput : By executing independent transactions concurrently, Monads are able to handle higher transactions per second than a purely sequential execution model.

Efficient resource utilization : Leverage the processing power of multiple cores to achieve efficient resource utilization and faster block processing time.

MonadDB Storage System

To support parallel execution, Monad developed MonadDB, a custom database system that uses asynchronous disk operations to allow multiple transactions to read and write at the same time. This design significantly improves transaction processing speed, supports efficient data access and state management, optimizes system performance, and solves the I/O bottleneck problem faced by traditional blockchain systems due to synchronous operations.

Monad's innovative technology provides a new solution to the scalability and performance issues of blockchain. Its unique parallel architecture and highly optimized consensus mechanism make it a high-performance infrastructure that supports large-scale applications in the future. With the launch of the mainnet and the continuous improvement of the ecosystem, Monad is expected to become the preferred Layer 1 blockchain platform for developers and enterprises.