You can think of Monad as a brand new, super-intelligent highway, and it aims to solve the issues of the current 'old road' (Ethereum).
1. Goal: A non-congested 'public highway' that anyone can use
· The problem with the old road (Ethereum): This road is very famous, everyone loves to use it (decentralized, secure), but it only has one lane and many traffic lights. During peak hours (transaction peaks), it gets completely congested, and the speed is slow (can only handle 15-20 transactions per second), and to get on the road, you have to pay a high 'congestion fee' (Gas fee).
· The ambition of Monad: we want to build a new super highway. It is fully compatible with all vehicle types on the old road (this is EVM compatibility, meaning all apps developed for Ethereum can directly run on it), but the goal is:
· Extremely fast: allowing 10,000 vehicles to pass per second.
· No traffic jams: almost no waiting.
· Low fees: because the road is wide, the toll is very cheap.
· Owned by everyone: anyone can become a maintainer of this road (run a node), rather than being controlled by a few large companies.
2. How does Monad achieve this? Three major 'black technologies'
To achieve the above goals, this new highway employs three core technologies:
Black technology one: efficient traffic command system — MonadBFT consensus
· The approach of the old road: all drivers must stop at an intersection and discuss among themselves 'Which way should we go?', and only after reaching a consensus do they start moving. This is very safe but extremely slow.
· The approach of Monad: it has a smart, pre-set command system. It quickly designates a 'temporary navigator' to confirm the route, and other drivers just need to quickly verify before following. This process is extremely fast (block time 400 milliseconds), and once confirmed, it never backtracks (preventing fork finality). The result is: everyone no longer needs to stop and discuss endlessly, greatly increasing the speed of passage.
Black technology two: lightning-fast message transmission — RaptorCast
· Question: on a very long highway, how to instantly notify all drivers of the 'construction ahead' message?
· The approach of the old road: using loudspeakers to broadcast, or one person passing the message to another, which is inefficient and prone to errors.
· The approach of Monad: like an efficient delivery network, it divides messages into small packages and distributes them to everyone simultaneously via the optimal path. The result is: the entire network state synchronizes extremely quickly, ensuring efficiency and safety.
Black technology three: 'multi-core brain' for simultaneous task processing — asynchronous plus parallel execution
This is the core breakthrough of Monad!
· The approach of the old road (sequential execution): like a supermarket with only one checkout counter. No matter how many customers come, they must line up in a long queue and check out one by one. If the person at the front slows down, everyone behind has to wait.
· The approach of Monad (parallel execution): like a modern supermarket with dozens of checkout counters. When customers come in, the system automatically determines which people are unrelated (for example, you buy milk, he buys bread, they do not affect each other) and then lets them check out simultaneously at different counters.
· The meaning of 'asynchronous' is that even if a certain checkout counter encounters a problem (for example, a customer wants to return or exchange a product), it will not block the normal operation of other checkout counters.
· The result is: transaction processing capacity (throughput) experiences exponential growth. This is the ultimate key to achieving 10,000 transactions per second.
To summarize, what does it mean for ordinary users and developers:
1. For developers: the program you write for Ethereum can be deployed on Monad almost without modification. However, your users will enjoy lightning-fast speeds and much lower fees. It's like moving a store from an old street to a new shopping center, upgrading both foot traffic and experience.
2. For users: the games and financial applications (DeFi) built on Monad you will use in the future will feel as smooth as using traditional internet applications. There will be no more situations where transaction confirmations take forever, or fees exceed the transfer amount.
3. For network participants: if you want to contribute to the network (run a node), you do not need to buy top professional servers; participating with a regular computer is possible, ensuring the network's 'decentralization', which means it is not dominated by giants.
In summary, the core idea of Monad is: we do not rely on piling up expensive hardware but instead use smarter and more efficient software algorithms to enhance blockchain performance to a level sufficient to support large-scale commercial applications while maintaining 'everyone's participation' (decentralization). It aims to become the cornerstone of the next generation of decentralized applications.
