Founder Speaks About the Altcoin Arthur Hayes Slammed

Monad (MON) founder Keone Hon responded to BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes’ recent harsh criticism of MON with a comprehensive statement.

Hayes claimed that MON was “99% fail-safe” and argued that the project was “not even close” to Solana. Hon, however, defended Monad's differences in a statement, detailing both the project and the technology being developed.

In his message to Hayes, Hon began by expressing his respect for his contributions to the cryptocurrency industry, and then pointed out that recent comments about the Monad may have been taken out of context. Following the ensuing criticism, he addressed the question, “Why is the Monad different?” one by one.

According to Hon's statement, the salient features of Monad are summarized as follows:

Monad's primary focus is speed. Hon noted that when users withdraw MON from Coinbase, their assets appear on the network within 1–2 seconds, a result of the newly developed architecture. Monad is built entirely from scratch in C++ and Rust, incorporating high-frequency trading (HFT)-style optimizations. Built on this architecture, the network, powered by 170 global validators, aims to deliver high speed while maintaining decentralization.

Hon argued that Monad proves the contrary, challenging the prevailing assumption that blockchains must be centralized to be efficient. Unlike Layer 2 (L2) or data center chains, which rely on a single sequencer, Monad creates a “neutral, decentralized, and trustless infrastructure.”

According to the founder, Monad's technical innovations include the new consensus mechanism MonadBFT, which is said to solve the tail forking problem; Async Execution, which increases efficiency by separating consensus and execution; a JIT compiler that compiles to native code; the new database MonadDb; the advanced block propagation system RaptorCast; and parallel execution. Hon noted that Ethereum is similarly working to transition to an async execution model, claiming that Monad offers industry-leading innovations.

Hon stated that the ecosystem is still at the beginning of the road, but new applications are being developed rapidly with young and aggressive teams, and that the Monad Foundation and Category Labs will continue to advance aggressively in research and development.

At the end of his statement, Hon offered to send MON to Arthur Hayes and said, “Thank you again for your contributions, see you on the chain.”