Interestingly, Ethos has also launched a sentiment trend section for project parties, currently featuring a total of 7 projects.

Both MegaETH and Monad are high-performance public chains, yet their evaluations in Ethos form two completely opposite extremes (perhaps another usage of Ethos?).

Today, I also want to share my views on these two projects and their participation strategy tendencies.

If you aren’t very familiar with the fundamentals of these two projects, you can check out this tweet I wrote earlier https://x.com/0xcryptoHowe/status/1832336535066210622.

1️⃣ Analysis and strategy recommendations for MegaETH and Monad projects.

First, we need to understand that MegaETH is a Layer2, while Monad is a Layer1. This difference in positioning determines the subsequent development paths of both from the very beginning.

I had previously discussed this issue with Teacher Poopman @poopmandefi, and here I provide some reference thoughts for everyone.

➣ MegaETH @megaeth_labs

Strong community, strong ecology. However, the positioning of Layer2 determines that their upper limit is relatively low (comparison with current EVM L2 and Ethereum), and their value capture ability is weaker.

This is why MegaETH places great emphasis on the development of ecological projects, aiming to build some Mega native projects rather than so-called multi-chain projects.

Only if market users are willing to use these projects can the entire public chain have sustained user retention and stable cash flow.

Ultimately, MegaETH will evolve to: ecological projects have a good wealth effect, but the price performance of public chain tokens is relatively average.

Thus, the NFTs sold by MegaETH earlier not only allow for low-cost token acquisition but are also important for potential additional airdrops from ecosystem projects.

Recently, after watching a video interview of Brother Alex @0xAlexon with Brother Bing @hotpot_dao, I wrote the following comments in the TG channel.

➣ Monad @monad_xyz

Strong community, weak ecology. The positioning of Layer1 means that Monad's valuation upper limit will be higher; the nearly $300 million luxurious financing background also reflects this.

As I said, the amount of project financing is not necessarily better when higher; after the project’s TGE, it becomes the project party's own debt. So everyone can think about where Monad will cash out 300 million dollars?

A simple logic is to create a good ecological market atmosphere, attracting users to FOMO into participation while capturing the related token value through fees, various DeFi protocols, etc.

Therefore, for Monad, the importance of the value of its own public chain is higher than the prosperity of ecological projects. This corresponds to the current situation of strong community but weak ecology.

2️⃣ Participation strategy analysis

Based on the analysis of the first part, we can see that MegaETH and Monad have different participation tendencies.

MegaETH needs to focus on ecological projects with potential and good backgrounds, currently the hottest is Noise @noise_xyz.

Since the public chain testnet has no incentives, it doesn’t mean that ecological projects don’t have incentives, so the odds here are relatively good.

In contrast, Monad needs to focus on any projects or activities officially endorsed and supported.

These have a deep interest-binding relationship with Monad's official; things made by insiders can’t possibly lead to losses for insiders, right?

3️⃣ Some extended thoughts on the ecological testnet.

Before we start the main text, let’s take a vote 👇🏻

Vote: Do you think the ecological testnet needs incentives?
➣ Yes, there need to be incentives for users
➣ No, incentives should be given to the true users of the ecosystem
➣ It’s optional, as long as I can make money
➣ Others (feel free to leave a comment)

Overall, there are similarities and differences in the development paths of MegaETH and Monad.

They both place great importance on building community culture, but there are significant differences in ecological strategic development.

MegaETH clearly has no testnet incentives and has been avoiding aggressive financing strategies, actively introducing various innovative ecological projects, not pursuing quantity (currently 15).

Monad clearly has testnet incentives, and its financing strategy is relatively aggressive, with the speed of expansion for ecological projects being very fast (currently 246).

Now let’s revisit the initial voting question: Does the ecological testnet need incentives? Or rather, what is the most important factor for the ecological testnet?

Some will say it’s the community, others will say it’s the number of ecological projects, and still others will mention technological innovation, but the most important factor is the developers (Dev). They can be said to be the lifeblood of the ecosystem; whoever has enough good Devs can win in the market.

Imagine if Pump fun doesn't have enough quality Devs, can the Meme ecosystem still thrive? How many Memes are left to speculate on in the market?

Having a community without Devs is like creating a church but finding no one can write, unable to produce a 'Bible' to convey the church's thoughts and beliefs to its members. As community sentiment dissipates, what will remain of the church?

Blindly pursuing the expansion of ecological projects is not necessarily a good thing; this phenomenon is extremely common in many public chains/projects today.

I believe everyone has had such an experience: casually opening an ecosystem interface, you are greeted by hundreds of project icons, one-third being essential infrastructure (oracles, developer tools, etc.), one-third being classic must-have multi-chain protocols (cross-chain bridges, DEXs, etc.), and the remaining third possibly being so-called 'ecosystem-native' projects.

But is this really what the market users want? If so, what’s the difference between using these protocols directly in other ecosystems? To me, this seems like the project parties' self-deception.

But Devs are different; a good Dev paired with a solid idea can create many interesting ecological projects (platforms). If we look at the three-platform theory from the perspective of the platform owners, the breaking point of the ecosystem lies in Dev revenue + reputation expectations < various costs like technology, energy, ecosystem adaptation.

Once the ecosystem loses a large number of Devs, it will create an accelerating spiral of 'Dev loss → No one maintains/creates products → User demand is unmet → Market users flee → Ecosystem revenue capability decreases → Accelerated loss'. A classic case can be referenced before and after Starknet's TGE.

Therefore, to achieve sustainable development of the ecosystem, the primary goal is to attract a large number of quality Devs to develop projects in the ecosystem.

If certain incentives are provided, the officials often find it difficult to take effective measures to incentivize; commonly used methods like grants and hackathons are filled with various corrupt undertones (as discussed in The Theory of Disenchantment XI).

If no incentives are given, the once-thriving data boom city will collapse in an instant, leaving the project party alone in chaos.

So back to the initial question: Does the ecological testnet need incentives? It seems not that important anymore.