MegaETH VS Monad: The Ultimate Showdown of Ethereum Technology
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MegaETH VS Monad: The Ultimate Showdown of Ethereum Technology
This episode explores their respective technological innovations, architectural designs, and community cultures.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsTranslation: Viee, Core Contributor of Biteye
Editing: Crush, Core Contributor of Biteye
Community: @BiteyeCN
*Approximately 2500 words, estimated reading time 5 minutes
In the rapid development of blockchain technology, Monad and MegaETH—two emerging projects—are pushing the evolution of the Ethereum ecosystem in their own unique ways.
Recently, Keone Hon, founder of Monad, held an in-depth conversation with Lei Yang, co-founder of MegaETH, discussing their respective technological innovations, architectural designs, and community cultures.
Monad is a Layer 1 blockchain designed to突破 performance bottlenecks through innovative execution and consensus mechanisms, aiming to achieve a throughput of over 10,000 transactions per second. Its design emphasizes efficiency and compatibility, enabling developers to seamlessly migrate existing Ethereum applications.
MegaETH, on the other hand, is a Layer 2 solution focused on further enhancing Ethereum's transaction performance, targeting over 100,000 transactions per second. By optimizing the existing Ethereum architecture, the project aims to deliver faster transaction experiences for users.
This article summarizes the hour-long podcast interview, focusing on two blockchain projects with different architectures—Monad and MegaETH—and explores how they leverage distinct technical approaches to enhance the speed and efficiency of the Ethereum ecosystem.
01
Monad: Reimagining the Future of Ethereum
During the discussion, Keone Hon introduced Monad’s core philosophy, emphasizing its vision as a reimagining of Ethereum capable of achieving a throughput of up to 10,000 transactions per second.
Monad improves storage efficiency of Ethereum's Merkle tree data by building a new database—Monad DB. Keone pointed out that traditional Ethereum execution is single-threaded, while Monad significantly enhances execution performance by introducing optimistic parallel execution and asynchronous execution.
In Keone’s view, state access is the biggest bottleneck in execution. Every smart contract relies on certain residual states associated with it, requiring data to be read from disk. Therefore, the primary bottleneck in execution is actually state access—not merely computational capacity.
The design of Monad DB specifically addresses this challenge, ensuring the database can efficiently perform parallel reads, thereby unlocking greater performance potential.
02
MegaETH: A Blockchain Pursuing Ultimate Performance
In contrast, Lei Yang described MegaETH’s goal as building a performance-optimized blockchain that is fully compatible with Ethereum, with the vision of becoming the “first real-time blockchain.”
As an Ethereum Layer 2, MegaETH is committed to achieving transaction processing capabilities exceeding 100,000 per second. Lei emphasized that MegaETH does not solely rely on parallelization but instead focuses on improving single-thread performance. He believes single-thread performance is crucial for the practical use of many applications.
Technically, MegaETH employs a single active sequencer to process all transactions, while other nodes only need to subscribe to state updates.
This design reduces execution redundancy and lowers hardware requirements for full nodes. Lei further explained that MegaETH has developed a new data structure similar to the Merkle Patricia Trie, optimized for hardware utilization to support highly efficient transaction processing.
03
Divergent Perspectives on Decentralization
In the debate over decentralization, Keone and Lei hold differing views. Keone believes that Monad’s architecture—through independent single nodes and full nodes—ensures decentralization, trustless neutrality, and censorship resistance. He stresses that decentralization is not just a technical choice, but a core value of the community.
Lei, however, argues that MegaETH demonstrates superior decentralization because it relies on Ethereum’s tens of thousands of nodes to guarantee finality and correctness. He points out that MegaETH’s single sequencer enables extremely low transaction feedback times—an impossibility in any consensus-based system.
Although the two founders differ in their definitions of decentralization, both agree that this characteristic is vital for the long-term development of blockchains. All Layer 2 solutions can claim to be more decentralized since they directly depend on Ethereum for settlement. Monad, meanwhile, enhances Ethereum’s efficiency through new technologies without increasing hardware demands. This improvement boosts Ethereum’s performance and supports optimization across the entire decentralized system.
04
Hardware vs. Software: Understanding Technical Differences
On the level of technical philosophy, Keone and Lei also differ. Keone emphasizes that Monad focuses on extracting maximum performance from minimal hardware, allowing anyone to run a node on ordinary devices. He believes this requires software-level optimization rather than reliance on high-end hardware. Monad’s goal is to improve Ethereum’s performance while maintaining decentralization.
Lei, on the other hand, states that MegaETH chose a Layer 2 architecture because it offers the best performance, minimizing redundancy between execution and consensus. They do not cling to tradition but boldly prioritize performance. Lei specifically notes that MegaETH’s design allows transaction feedback times as low as 1 millisecond—an unprecedented achievement in any consensus-based system.
05
Community Culture and Brand Identity
When it comes to community building, the two founders emphasize different aspects. Keone mentions that Monad encourages everyone to contribute and fosters a positive environment. He highlights that Monad’s mascot and events are spontaneously created and promoted by community members, embodying the spirit of decentralization.
In contrast, Lei introduces MegaETH’s “Mega Mafia” brand image, which attracts developers interested in high-performance blockchain applications. They particularly focus on founders who feel let down by current infrastructure, aiming to help them realize their dreams through MegaETH.
06
When Will Mainnet Launch?
Keone said the Monad team is working hard but cannot provide an exact date.
Lei responded that MegaETH is expected to launch by the end of this year or early next year.
07
Summary
Both Monad and MegaETH aim to build high-performance, decentralized EVM-compatible chains. Monad achieves its goals by reconstructing the execution and consensus layers—specifically by creating Monad DB, introducing Optimistic execution to enable parallel and asynchronous transaction processing, and using the Monad BFT algorithm to accelerate consensus. These reconstructions also reduce node hardware requirements, promoting network decentralization.
MegaETH, by contrast, focuses on enhancing single-thread performance. It simplifies transaction processing via a single sequencer, reducing hardware burden on full nodes, and introduces a new data structure to improve overall efficiency, thus achieving peak performance. As an Ethereum L2, it primarily handles efficient transaction execution, while relying on Ethereum for decentralization.
This dialogue showcases two distinct blockchain design philosophies. Despite significant differences in implementation, both share the same goal: advancing the Ethereum ecosystem.
This technical debate not only reveals the cutting edge of current blockchain technology but also offers insights for future innovation. Whether it’s Monad’s deep optimization or MegaETH’s pursuit of high performance, both represent vital forces driving progress in blockchain technology. With pioneers like Keone and Lei leading the way, the Ethereum ecosystem is sure to enter a brighter future.
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