Monad Ecosystem Guide: Native DEX/Perp Preview
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Monad Ecosystem Guide: Native DEX/Perp Preview
In the ecosystem of Monad, the leading L1 blockchain with next-generation parallel EVM, a batch of powerful native DEX projects has emerged, leveraging Monad's cutting-edge performance to deliver enhanced functionality and superior user experience.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsDecentralized exchanges (DEXs) have become a foundational pillar of blockchain applications, enabling users to trade assets without permission or intermediaries. In 2024, the DEX market experienced significant growth, with trading volume nearly doubling compared to 2023. For example, Raydium achieved an average daily trading volume of $785 million in Q3, representing a year-over-year increase of more than 100x.
Source: the 6th annual @ElectricCapital Developer Report
Within the Monad ecosystem—the leading Layer 1 blockchain for next-generation parallel EVM—several powerful native DEX projects have emerged, leveraging Monad’s cutting-edge performance to deliver enhanced functionality and superior user experiences. These platforms aim to address existing challenges in decentralized trading, such as capital efficiency, pricing accuracy, and user engagement.
This article introduces, as of the end of 2024, native DEX/Perp projects within the Monad ecosystem. Built on Monad’s high-throughput, low-latency infrastructure, these native DEXs are poised to redefine the landscape of decentralized trading by combining the advantages of centralized exchanges with the security and composability of decentralized platforms. With Monad’s public testnet即将 launching, we will soon have the opportunity to experience these DEXs firsthand:
1. Kuru
Kuru is the first fully on-chain Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) DEX in the Monad ecosystem. By leveraging Monad’s high throughput and low latency, Kuru aims to redefine decentralized trading by merging the strengths of centralized exchanges with the composability and self-custody of decentralized exchanges.
I. Why Choose CLOB?
Advantages over Automated Market Makers (AMMs)
-
Capital Efficiency: CLOB allows market makers to actively quote prices, resulting in tighter bid-ask spreads and reduced slippage. Unlike passive liquidity allocation in AMMs, CLOB concentrates liquidity at optimal price points.
-
Pricing Accuracy: Real-time order updates enable accurate price discovery, helping maintain alignment with global market prices.
-
Flexibility for Market Makers: Market makers can dynamically adjust buy/sell quotes based on market conditions without incurring significant gas fees.
II. Kuru's Unique Capabilities
Monad’s features enhance Kuru’s performance
-
Throughput: ~10,000 transactions per second (TPS).
-
Low Latency: 1-second block finality.
-
Cost Efficiency: Low gas fees allow frequent order updates without significant cost burden.
By building on Monad, Kuru leverages these advanced capabilities to improve platform performance:
-
Optimized Smart Contracts: Designed for market makers to place/cancel limit orders with low and consistent gas fees.
-
Seamless Integration: Supports both high-liquidity and long-tail assets, offering broad trading opportunities.
-
User-Centric Design: Integrates discovering, researching, and trading into a single interface.
-
Passive Liquidity Solutions: Developing mechanisms that allow users to passively provide liquidity to the order book.
In July 2024, Kuru announced a successful $2 million seed funding round led by Electric Capital, with participation from Brevan Howard Digital, CMS Holdings, Pivot Global, Breed, Velocity Capital, Purple, and notable angel investors Keone Hon (CEO and Co-founder of Monad), Jarry Xiao, and Eugene Chen.
Kuru uniquely combines the efficiency of centralized systems with the decentralization of blockchain, aiming to revolutionize on-chain trading. By leveraging Monad’s infrastructure, Kuru has the potential to become a major liquidity hub for the next generation of DeFi projects. With a clear roadmap, strong technology, and community-focused vision, Kuru is positioned to redefine the future.
2. Composite
Composite Labs is building a fully on-chain Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) DEX within the Monad ecosystem. As next-generation trading infrastructure, Composite integrates innovative features for spot and derivatives markets—including real-world assets. The project leverages Monad’s high-performance blockchain to solve long-standing challenges in DeFi and capture emerging opportunities in the space.
I. Why Choose Composite?
Composite stands out in the DeFi space due to its innovative approach to decentralized trading. Here are the core reasons why Composite is unique and important:
-
Unified Order Book: Composite integrates lending, spot trading, and perpetual contracts into one fully CLOB-based platform. This integration simplifies user experience and operational efficiency, meeting cross-platform demands.
-
Portfolio Margining: Composite delivers top-tier capital efficiency through portfolio margining. Traders can open positions using existing assets (e.g., ETH) as collateral without additional deposits. For instance, selling perpetuals to generate yield requires no extra collateral.
-
Cost Efficiency: Composite charges a flat, low fee across all trade sizes. Whether trading $1,000 or $100,000, users pay the same minimal fee, enhancing cost efficiency.
II. Key Performance Enabled by Monad’s Features:
-
Scalability and Performance: Monad’s high throughput and low latency enable Composite to efficiently handle large transaction volumes, delivering a seamless trading experience.
-
Cost Efficiency: Optimized execution and storage mechanisms reduce operational costs, allowing Composite to offer extremely low trading fees.
-
Security and Decentralization: Monad’s robust consensus mechanism and fully on-chain operations ensure high levels of security and decentralization, aligning with commitments to transparency and trustlessness.
By combining Monad’s infrastructure with team innovation, Composite is poised to become a cornerstone of the Monad ecosystem and lead a new wave of DeFi innovation. Composite Labs merges advanced financial engineering with Monad’s cutting-edge blockchain capabilities to create a high-performance, fully on-chain trading platform.
3. Zaros
Zaros is an innovative Perpetual Contracts Decentralized Exchange (Perp DEX) that combines liquid staking tokens (LSTs and LRTs) with perpetual futures markets, aiming to deliver a user experience comparable to centralized exchanges (CEX), while preserving the benefits of decentralization.
Why Choose Zaros?
-
Diverse Market Coverage: Traders can access 30–40 perpetual contracts on a single platform, including cryptocurrencies, forex, and commodities. This diversity enables comprehensive multi-asset trading strategies.
-
Innovative Market Making Mechanism: Zaros introduces a new market-making engine that allows anyone to participate by locking yield-generating assets as collateral. This democratizes market making—liquidity providers earn ETH fees paid by traders by lending their collateral to generate Zaros liquidity.
-
Enhanced Capital Efficiency: By linking LSTs and LRTs with perpetual futures, Zaros enables liquidity providers to boost returns via the ZLP Vault. The ZLP Vault locks the underlying collateral provided by LPs into a single contract to expand liquidity limits in the Zaros perpetual market. This integration fosters real yield generation and capital efficiency, allowing LST and LRT holders to lend their liquidity.
In May 2024, Zaros successfully raised $1.8 million in funding. The round was led by SNZ Holdings, with participation from Seven Capital, Cogitent Ventures, DCI Capital, and notable angel investors Antony Sassano, Fernando Martinelli, Kieran Warwick, Andy Chen, and Kevin Lu.
Built on Monad, Zaros leverages Monad’s core features to deliver an efficient, cost-effective, scalable, and user-friendly trading platform. Monad’s high throughput and low latency ensure minimal delays even during peak trading periods. Cost efficiency translates into lower trading fees for users, making trades easier to execute. Additionally, Monad’s EVM compatibility ensures seamless integration with other Ethereum-based applications, enhancing platform composability and the broader DeFi ecosystem.
With Monad’s support, Zaros offers a powerful, user-centric perpetual futures trading platform that combines the best aspects of centralized and decentralized exchanges, creating a superior trading experience.
4. Drake
Drake Exchange is a fully on-chain Perpetual Contracts Decentralized Exchange (Perp DEX), designed to deliver a trading experience rivaling centralized exchanges (CEX), while maintaining DeFi’s transparency and security. Leveraging Monad’s high-performance infrastructure, Drake offers advanced trading features, deep liquidity, and efficient execution, positioning itself as a leading Perp DEX in the Monad ecosystem.
Why Choose Drake?
-
Hybrid Liquidity Model: Drake combines a fully on-chain Limit Order Book (LOB) with an Automated Market Maker (AMM) fallback. This two-layer approach ensures optimal price discovery, minimal slippage, and rapid access to market opportunities even without immediate market maker presence.
-
Advanced Trading Capabilities: Traders can use up to 50x leverage on major assets like ETH and BTC, utilizing both cross-margin and isolated margin accounts. Features such as internal collateral swapping and automated vaults—including a funding rate vault for direction-neutral yield—enhance trading strategies and risk management.
-
Automated Yield Strategies: Through features like the funding rate vault, users earn direction-neutral returns on USDC deposits, achieving passive, continuous income. This dual-layer liquidity system ensures deep liquidity and optimal price execution even during high volatility or shallow order book depth.
Finalist at Monad Madness NYC 2024: Drake was recognized for its innovative features and user-friendly design, highlighting its potential as a native Monad perpetual DEX.
Built on Monad’s efficient infrastructure, Drake offers gas-free trading, improving user experience by lowering transaction costs. With Monad’s unique capabilities, Drake matches the performance and functionality of centralized exchanges. Its innovative liquidity model, intuitive design, and commitment to transparency make it an ideal choice for traders seeking a secure and efficient on-chain perpetual DEX.
5. Bean
Bean Exchange is a decentralized exchange (DEX) offering spot and perpetual trading with features such as low swap fees, zero price impact trades, and multi-asset liquidity pools, benefiting liquidity providers.
Why Choose Bean?
-
Low Swap Fees and Zero Price Impact Trades: Bean reduces swap fees and eliminates price volatility to ensure cost-efficient, zero price impact trading.
-
BLP Tokens: Liquidity providers can join BLP pools to earn yields from leveraged trading (spot and perpetual), borrowing fees, and swap fees. Fees from leveraged and swap trading automatically increase the price of BLP tokens.
-
Advanced Position Management: Traders can adjust positions by adding collateral to prevent liquidation or fine-tune leverage ratios. Additional features include modifying take-profit and stop-loss levels during active trades.
By leveraging Monad’s infrastructure, Bean Exchange aims to deliver a powerful and user-friendly decentralized trading experience that meets the needs of DeFi traders seeking efficiency and reliability.
6. Ammalgam
Ammalgam is an innovative DeFi protocol that unifies lending and trading into a single platform—a Decentralized Lending Exchange (DLEX). This integration enhances capital efficiency for traders and delivers a superior user experience.
Why Choose Ammalgam?
-
Permissionless Overcollateralized Peer-to-Peer Lending: Enables users to lend and borrow without intermediaries.
-
Decentralized Lending Exchange (DLEX): Ammalgam integrates lending and trading in a single contract, enabling seamless interaction between functions and increasing capital utilization.
-
Enhanced Capital Efficiency: By lending out idle assets typically locked in AMM pools, Ammalgam increases yield for market makers, boosting returns for liquidity providers by up to 20%.
In September 2024, Ammalgam announced a successful $2.5 million seed round co-led by Lightspeed Faction and Framework Ventures. Other participants included Robot Ventures, Bodhi Ventures, NGC Ventures, DeWhales, Blockchain Founders Fund, and notable angel investors Kain Warwick (Founder of Synthetix), Anton Bukov, Spencer Noon, and Jordi Alexander.
Backed by Monad, Ammalgam combines its innovative DLEX model with a blockchain infrastructure designed for speed, efficiency, and compatibility, establishing itself as a strong contender in the DeFi space.
7. Monorail
Monorail is an innovative DEX aggregator designed to optimize trades by consolidating liquidity from both AMMs and CLOBs. Leveraging Monad’s high-performance blockchain, Monorail delivers improved price efficiency and advanced trading features for users.
Why Choose Monorail?
-
Superior Price Aggregation: By combining AMM and CLOB liquidity, Monorail ensures users trade at the best possible prices. The platform routes large orders from Ethereum and L2 networks to be settled on Monad, leveraging its scalability and low fees.
-
Advanced Features: Monorail offers limit orders from day one, giving traders greater control and flexibility than traditional DEXs. Its aggregation model optimizes execution by combining multiple liquidity sources, reducing slippage and improving trade outcomes.
-
Experienced Team: Developed by a team incubated at Delphi Labs, known for successfully launching Astroport in the Cosmos ecosystem.
Finalist at Monad Madness BKK 2024: Monorail represents the next evolution in aggregation, merging order book efficiency with AMM liquidity into personalized order books for optimal trading experiences.
Monorail showcases Monad’s high-performance traits, delivering a next-gen DEX aggregator that unifies AMM and CLOB liquidity for maximum trading efficiency. With a strong team, innovative features like limit orders, and strategic partnerships within the Monad ecosystem, Monorail is poised to become a key player in the DEX space.
8. Nitro
Nitro Finance is an innovative DeFi protocol that integrates the functionalities of a decentralized exchange (DEX) and money markets into a unified platform, aiming to address common challenges such as impermanent loss, bad debt, low capital efficiency, and market fragmentation.
Why Choose Nitro?
Fused Trade Ledger: Nitro introduces single-pair asset pools (e.g., ETH/USDC), where users can seamlessly swap, lend, and borrow within the same pool. This design improves capital efficiency and consolidates DeFi operations.
-
Price Bin Mechanism: Unlike traditional models, Nitro uses a price bin system where each asset has multiple bins. Liquidity in one bin must be exhausted before the next activates, providing a structured approach to liquidity provision and utilization.
-
Reduced Bad Debt: An automatic debt recovery mechanism combined with fixed debt terms effectively reduces bad debt by absorbing collateral assets at the borrowed price upon maturity.
-
Nitro Launchpad: An innovative token launch model featuring customizable distribution curves for efficient price discovery and initial liquidity seeding.
By leveraging Monad’s advanced blockchain infrastructure, Nitro Finance enhances platform performance, security, and user experience, enabling users to swap, lend, and borrow from the same asset pool. This integration improves capital efficiency and reduces fragmentation in the DeFi ecosystem.
9. Narwhal Finance
Narwhal Finance is a Monad-based decentralized perpetual trading platform that combines AI-driven trading with gamified experiences. It enables users to trade multiple leveraged pairs—including cryptocurrencies and forex—without KYC, geographic restrictions, or high CEX fees.
Why Choose Narwhal?
-
Make Trading Feel Like a Game: Narwhal launches a gamified copy-trading platform where users can easily follow top traders’ strategies and share in their profits. This lowers the barrier for novice traders and fosters a community-driven trading environment.
-
AI-Powered Trading Platform: Narwhal integrates AI-driven trading bots, providing users with advanced tools to optimize strategies and improve performance.
-
Synthetic Leverage Trading: Narwhal uses a synthetic trading model, eliminating the need for traditional order books or separate liquidity per pair. PnL is calculated in smart contracts and settled against the platform’s liquidity token, NLP, simplifying the trading process.
-
Diverse Asset Selection: Powered by Pyth’s synthetic asset design, Narwhal offers deep liquidity and minimal slippage, enabling users to trade across asset classes beyond crypto—including stocks, indices, and forex.
In March 2024, Narwhal Finance completed a $1 million seed round led by Animoca Ventures, with participation from several top-tier investors and angels.
Built on Monad, Narwhal Finance combines innovative trading features with a powerful, efficient blockchain infrastructure to deliver a decentralized trading experience that rivals traditional centralized exchanges.
Conclusion
The ecosystem of Monad-native decentralized exchanges (DEXs) is rapidly evolving, powered by Monad’s advanced technology. These highlighted projects aim to overcome limitations of both traditional centralized exchanges (CEX) and existing DEXs. By emphasizing user experience, capital efficiency, and innovative trading mechanisms, they are set to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of DeFi. These emerging ecosystem players may attract traders seeking more efficient, transparent, and secure trading platforms. By continuing to harness Monad’s high throughput, low latency, and cost efficiency, these projects demonstrate Monad’s critical role in driving innovation in the space.
This article highlights native projects publicly building on Monad as of 2024. We welcome more builders to explore Monad’s technological innovations and join our ecosystem. Below are Monad’s official links and communities—feel free to reach out anytime:
Gmonad
Official Links WebOfficial Links
-
Website: https://monad.xyz/
-
Twitter: https://twitter.com/monad_xyz
-
Substack: https://monadxyz.substack.com/
-
Discord: https://discord.gg/monad
-
Developer Discord: https://discord.gg/monaddev
-
Monad Chinese Community Twitter: https://x.com/monad_xyz
-
Monad Chinese TG Group: https://t.me/Chinads
-
Monad Chinese Developer TG Group: https://t.me/+UE_dh4BNHIxhMjY1
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
@Harveycww
