Monad is emerging as a high-performance, EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain platform, boasting up to 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) and a block time of only 0.5 seconds. Its combination of scalability, compatibility, and speed has attracted over 210 diverse projects across multiple categories, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Gaming, NFTs, and more.
Key Categories in the Monad Ecosystem
Monad is positioning itself as a DeFi-first chain, and the early ecosystem reflects this strategy. Protocols are being built to take advantage of Monad’s high throughput and ultra-low fees, making complex DeFi strategies like high-frequency trading, perpetuals, and real-time arbitrage economically viable.
The main categories within the ecosystem include AI, DeFi, DEX, derivatives, lending, gaming, NFTs, payments, wallets, social, prediction markets, indexers, Oracles, cross-chain, developer tooling, account extraction, real-world assets (RWA), liquid staking tokens (LST), stablecoins, memecoins, launchpads, and other infrastructure applications. This diversity clearly demonstrates Monad’s potential and scalability.
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
This category encompasses 21 innovative projects that seamlessly integrate artificial intelligence with blockchain technology, fostering decentralized AI computation and advanced data analytics capabilities.
- Highlight Project: AiCraft.fun
Selected as Monad’s first AI agent launchpad, aiCraft.fun introduces decentralized AI agents that users can build, tokenize, and monetize. The protocol allows users to transform domain expertise into sustainable income by deploying AI agents on-chain.
Source: AiCraft.fun
Playback
Playback builds Large Action Models (LAMs) capable of converting human intentions—such as screen gestures—into executable computer tasks. The project facilitates a privacy-focused data contribution layer, enabling users to share anonymized screen recordings in exchange for rewards. Playback’s approach moves beyond static language models to create utility-driven LAM systems.
Fortytwo
Fortytwo empowers individuals to contribute computing power from personal devices to a hive-like decentralized AI compute network. The AI model enables ordinary users—not just data centers—to participate in AI training and inference tasks on Monad, thereby fostering broader inclusion in the AI infrastructure.
Monadata.ai
Monadata focuses on personal AI agents and community-driven data annotation. By incentivizing contributions in knowledge building and cleaning, Monadata ensures data sovereignty and community ownership, allowing participants to curate models and receive rewards.
MonadScore
MonadScore is a decentralized AI-powered reputation layer that tracks user contributions on-chain. By running a node or completing tasks, users earn points toward future airdrops. The AI layer evaluates behaviours and engagements using real-time blockchain metrics to create transparent, merit-based profiles.
2. Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
As Monad’s largest category, DeFi boasts an impressive 69 projects, forming a robust ecosystem for decentralized financial services, including lending, borrowing, trading, and yield farming—all conducted without intermediaries. Given its substantial size, DeFi projects play a pivotal role in driving activity and liquidity within the Monad blockchain.
aPriori, Monad’s flagship liquid staking protocol, leverages MEV-driven mechanisms to maximize staking returns. Users stake MON tokens and receive aprMON, a transferable liquid representation that continues to earn staking and MEV-enhanced rewards. By combining yield and liquidity, aPriori helps fuel wider DeFi participation across the network.
Kintsu is another native staking protocol that enables users to stake MON while retaining use of their liquidity via sMON tokens. Fully composable within Monad DeFi, Kintsu integrates staking with on-chain DeFi including lending and AMM exposure. Its DAO-governed architecture and restaking infrastructure provide a foundational glue piece for a growing ecosystem.
TayaSwap seeks to deliver concentrated liquidity, dynamic automated marketmaking, and no-code dApp deployments on Monad. Its design is optimized for the chain’s ultra-low latency and slim gas costs, enabling custom liquidity pools and trading strategies that rival traditional exchanges.
Kuru innovates with a full on-chain Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) DEX, offering tight spreads and traditional market maker flow experiences underpinned by Monad’s concurrency model. This approach bridges centralized-exchange performance with on-chain transparency.
Ambient Finance, originally known as CrocSwap, represents a lean and efficient AMM built for Monad’s architecture. It runs all pools through a single contract schema with lightweight data structures, minimizing gas usage while maximizing speed and profitability.
Balancer has ported its yield-optimizing AMM to Monad testnet, leveraging custom pool types and dynamic fee hooks to integrate deep liquidity with composability—a perfect match for high-throughput environments.
Perpl and Mace represent a new wave of DEX innovation. Perpl is a native order-book DEX emphasizing deep liquidity and low-latency execution, while Mace acts as Monad’s first DEX aggregator, routing trades across multiple liquidity sources to optimize price, slippage, and gas usage.
Bean Exchange is focused on on-chain perpetual and spot trading, integrating advanced order flow mechanics and price oracles like Pyth. With gamified UX and trading incentives, Bean aims to attract both retail traders and professional liquidity providers.
Curvance delivers composable lending and capital-routing functionality using ERC‑4626 vaults. It divides risk across various strategies and has safeguards against maximum extractable value (MEV) and safety features for reliable DeFi operations.
Mu Digital offers a unique angle—bridging fiat-denominated liquidity from Asian capital markets into Monad’s DeFi economy. By tokenizing real-world assets, it provides new yield channels and iInstitutional access to assets that are traditionally unavailable in public DeFi is also a key feature of TayaSwap.
Other prominent DeFi projects include:
- 0x – A leading decentralized exchange protocol enabling efficient peer-to-peer token trading.
- AUSD – Possibly serving as a stablecoin to facilitate seamless transactions across Monad’s DeFi ecosystem.
- Atlantis – Enhancing yield optimization strategies through intuitive farming mechanisms.
- Azaar – Delivering decentralized liquidity solutions to amplify DeFi capabilities.
- BimaBTC – Specializing in Bitcoin yield strategies.
- DiscoCats – Creative, NFT-linked yield opportunities.
- Synnax Labs – Robust DeFi yield optimization solutions.
- Magma Staking – Efficient liquid staking mechanisms.
- FastLane – Speed-focused staking solutions.
- PyeFinance – Community-orientated staking liquidity.
While precise Total Value Locked (TVL) and user adoption metrics are still emerging following Monad’s recent mainnet launch in early 2025, the extensive scope of DeFi indicates significant future potential for ecosystem growth and user engagement.
3. Gaming
Monad’s Gaming category features 12 innovative projects, leveraging blockchain technology to empower true digital asset ownership and dynamic, decentralized in-game economies. By integrating NFTs and play-to-earn mechanisms, these games offer players not just entertainment but tangible economic incentives.
- Featured Project: Anterris
Anterris stands out as a flagship title in Monad’s gaming universe. Players embark on creature-collecting adventures, train their beasts, gather loot, and engage in strategic combat. The game incorporates verifiable NFT ownership and fosters a community-driven economy where assets have lasting in-game and real-world values.
Source: Anterris
Sparkball, a 4‑versus‑4 MOBA‑style sports combat game developed by Opti Games, debuted at the Monad Madness competition in Bangkok. With gameplay reminiscent of Rocket League meets League of Legends, Sparkball aims to launch its Season Zero in late 2024 and the full version in mid‑2025. The project has raised $2 million from L1D and CMS Holdings and is closely aligned with the MON Protocol distribution platform
Other notable titles in Monad’s GameFi pipeline include Chaquen, Golden Goose, LootGo, Plato2Earn, Showdown GG, Holdara, Laniakea, Breath of Estova, Sparkball (as above), M10, Trading Leagues, and Omnia—all experimenting with NFT ownership, play-to-earn economies, and rapid gameplay enabled by Monad’s high‑TPS architecture.
Specifically, Breath of Estova is a 2D MMORPG that blends RPG-style exploration, on-chain randomness, and play-to-earn rewards. It uses the native $ESTOVA token and unique NFTs like Pets and land to support a dynamic in-game economy. An on-chain reward regulation mechanism called the “Estova Harmonizer” stabilizes incentives linked to liquidity
As Monad’s ecosystem continues to mature post-mainnet launch, these projects are poised for significant growth, driving increased player adoption and solidifying blockchain gaming as a cornerstone category within the Monad ecosystem.
4. NFTs
Monad’s NFT category includes 20 distinct projects dedicated to the creation, trading, and secure management of unique digital assets. These projects drive innovation in digital art, collectibles, and virtual ownership, providing creators and collectors a trusted blockchain foundation for their transactions.
- Featured Project: Magic Eden
Magic Eden stands out prominently within Monad’s NFT ecosystem as a leading
marketplace renowned for intuitive user experience, vibrant community engagement, and robust support for diverse digital collectibles.
Source: Magic Eden
Other significant NFT projects include:
- Blocklive – A pioneering platform integrating NFTs with event management and on-chain ticketing, leveraging historical proof to reward loyal fans and enhance community engagement.
- Gifted.art – A creative NFT marketplace empowering artists and collectors through secure, decentralized digital asset management and trading.
Opals.io, MonadName, NadDomains, Poply, ChogNFT, Spikynads, Pepenads, WoollyEggs, Llamao, TheBooDAO, BlockNads, Purple Frens, Monadverse, Monad Nomads, Monadians, Overnads, Monshape, Skrumpeys, Stonad, Chewy, Omnia.
While comprehensive transaction volumes and detailed metrics for NFTs on Monad remain forthcoming due to the ecosystem’s recent mainnet launch, early developments and community activity suggest substantial future growth potential in Monad’s NFT landscape.
5. Other Applications
The Other Apps category comprises essential decentralized applications that don’t neatly fit within traditional categories like DeFi, Gaming, or NFTs. Although not explicitly quantified in the ecosystem map, these unique projects typically overlap with infrastructure or specialized segments, enriching Monad’s application diversity.
- Featured Project: Proof-of-Skill
Proof-of-Skill is highlighted as a compelling application, leveraging blockchain to transparently validate and reward users’ skills and achievements. This innovative use case illustrates the platform’s flexibility beyond typical financial or gaming contexts, facilitating broader adoption.
6. Payments
Monad’s Payments category includes 3 dedicated projects designed to facilitate smooth, secure, and convenient crypto transactions, encompassing stablecoins, crypto gateways, and payment integration with traditional financial services.
- Leading Project: DAU Cards
DAU Cards serves as a pivotal bridge connecting cryptocurrency holdings to daily spending, providing users seamless access to over 40 million merchants worldwide. By significantly lowering barriers between digital assets and real-world purchases, DAU Cards plays a central role in mainstream crypto adoption within the Monad ecosystem.
Source: DAU
7. Prediction
Monad’s Prediction Market category features 4 innovative projects designed to engage users by enabling transparent, blockchain-based wagering on future event outcomes. These platforms leverage blockchain’s transparency, security, and decentralization, providing users with trustworthy and engaging prediction market experiences.
Prominent Project:
- LEVR.bet – Provides fully transparent decentralized sports betting with real-time liquidity management, ensuring secure and fair wagering experiences.
- Fantasy Top – Delivers blockchain-based fantasy sports, offering verifiable outcomes, transparent scoring, and innovative reward systems.
Additional noteworthy projects include:
- Griffy – Expanding prediction market opportunities with diverse event categories and accessible user engagement tools.
- Kizzy – Offers user-friendly interfaces for decentralized betting, potentially attracting broader mainstream participation.
8. Social
Monad’s Social category currently highlights 3 primary projects, dedicated to decentralized social networks and content creation platforms, aiming to foster authentic community interactions, reward-driven participation, and decentralized content distribution.
- Notable Example: Dusted
Dusted is an innovative social platform enabling users to join token-specific chat rooms, actively engaging in community discussions, earning points, and winning tangible rewards from various Monad ecosystem projects. This incentivized model significantly boosts user participation, loyalty, and interactivity within the Monad community.
9. Account Abstraction
Monad’s Account Abstraction category features 4 dedicated projects designed to enable more flexible blockchain account models. By supporting gasless transactions, bundled operations, and customizable account behaviors, these platforms significantly improve user experience, reduce transaction friction, and drive mainstream adoption of decentralized applications (dApps).
- Flagship Project: Biconomy
Biconomy stands out by offering modular, easy-to-integrate toolkits that empower developers to build highly user-friendly and frictionless dApps. Its powerful SDKs simplify user interactions through features such as gasless transactions, meta-transactions, and flexible account abstractions.
Source: Biconomy
Additional noteworthy projects include:
- Dynamic – Providing developer-friendly infrastructure that simplifies onboarding processes and enhances user experience through abstraction mechanisms.
- Gelato – Specializing in automated transaction execution and smart account infrastructure, enhancing UX with gas-efficient bundled operations.
10. Wallets
Monad’s Wallet category is extensive, comprising 19 specialized projects that provide essential tools for securely managing cryptocurrencies and interacting seamlessly with decentralized applications (dApps). These wallets play a crucial role in enabling user-friendly, secure, and efficient blockchain interactions.
- Noteworthy Project: Backpack Wallet
Backpack Wallet sets itself apart as an advanced, multifunctional wallet and integrated exchange platform. It offers users seamless experiences for token purchases, futures trading, asset management, and direct access to various dApps within Monad’s rapidly expanding ecosystem.
Source: Backpack
Other prominent wallet solutions include:
- Bitget Wallet – Known for intuitive interfaces and secure management features, facilitating both novice and experienced crypto users.
- Bybit Web3 Wallet – Enhances accessibility to Web3 applications with a streamlined user experience, supporting various blockchain-based assets.
- Coin98 AI Wallet – Leverages artificial intelligence to optimize asset management, providing advanced analytics and personalized recommendations.
- KuCoin Web3 Wallet – Combines the familiarity of traditional crypto platforms with Web3 functionalities, promoting easy onboarding and efficient management.
MoziFinance, Haha App, Phantom, MetaMask, Fizen App, Rabby.io.
While specific user-adoption statistics remain limited following Monad’s recent mainnet launch, the presence of well-established wallet providers indicates strong potential for significant user growth, heightened adoption, and broader ecosystem engagement in the coming months.
11. Cross-Chain
Monad’s Cross-Chain category comprises 11 significant projects, each focused on enhancing interoperability and facilitating secure, seamless asset transfers between different blockchain networks. Cross-chain solutions are critical to Monad’s strategy, promoting connectivity, liquidity, and innovation across diverse blockchain ecosystems.
- Top Project: Chainlink
Chainlink is an industry leader providing cross-chain verified data, decentralized oracle services, and robust financial standards across multiple blockchains. By ensuring the reliable flow of accurate external data to smart contracts, Chainlink strengthens Monad’s DeFi applications and overall ecosystem stability.
- Key Project: LayerZero
LayerZero is another crucial infrastructure solution, specializing in efficient, secure cross-chain messaging protocols. It enables smooth communication between Monad and numerous other blockchain networks, significantly enhancing developer flexibility and user experiences.
🟣 LayerZero is live on @monad_xyz testnet!
Builders can now explore how to expand their apps and tokens to the parallel EVM from 120+ chains. https://t.co/7V6U7W5NSg pic.twitter.com/pNQzTyIRiN
— LayerZero (@LayerZero_Core) February 19, 2025
Additional notable cross-chain projects include:
- Wormhole – Facilitating secure and efficient asset transfers across various blockchains, bolstering Monad’s liquidity and interoperability.
With Monad’s ecosystem rapidly expanding, these interoperability solutions are well-positioned to play a pivotal role in the network’s growth, likely stimulating increased cross-chain activity, asset transfers, and broader blockchain adoption in the near future.
12. Developer Tooling
Monad’s Developer Tooling category features 9 specialized projects, providing comprehensive tools for building, deploying, managing, and scaling blockchain-based applications. These tools empower developers to streamline the development process, optimize performance, and ensure seamless integration with the Monad ecosystem.
- Core Project: Alchemy
Alchemy serves as a cornerstone in this category, offering a robust, full-stack Web3 development platform. It provides powerful APIs, real-time monitoring, analytics dashboards, and scaling solutions, enabling developers to efficiently build and maintain decentralized applications at scale.
Additional Essential Infrastructure Projects include:
- Doppler – Specializes in secure key management and secret handling, enhancing developer security and simplifying configuration management.
By equipping developers with these powerful and versatile tools, Monad significantly reduces barriers to entry, accelerates ecosystem growth, and ensures that developers can easily harness the full potential of blockchain technology.
13. Analytics
Blockchain data indexing services simplify the process of querying and accessing on-chain information. A leading example is Allium, which provides comprehensive dashboards, APIs, data sharing tools, and real-time data feeds to support analytics and accounting.
With over 10 active projects in this space, indexers like BlockVision, Envio, Ghost, and GoldRush by Covalent are also playing a critical role. These platforms help make blockchain data more accessible and actionable for developers, analysts, and enterprises.
14. Oracles
Monad’s Oracle category includes 8 specialized projects that supply accurate, real-time external data to smart contracts, enabling seamless blockchain integration with real-world applications. Reliable oracles are vital for decentralized finance (DeFi), prediction markets, and any application requiring trustworthy external data feeds.
- Key Project: Chronicle
Chronicle distinguishes itself by providing decentralized, verifiable oracles specifically tailored to real-time and custom data requirements. Its secure infrastructure ensures precise and tamper-proof data inputs, supporting high-stakes financial services and various blockchain use cases.
Source: Chronicle Blog
Additional noteworthy oracle projects include:
- Chainsight – Specialized oracle solutions focused on decentralized finance applications, enhancing transparency and data integrity.
- eOracle – Provides diverse, customizable oracle services optimized for real-world data integration, enhancing the versatility of Monad smart contracts.
15. Infrastructure
The Other Infrastructure category within Monad’s ecosystem features 6 specialized projects that provide essential networking, security, and foundational enhancements critical for the ecosystem’s long-term stability and growth. These projects collectively form the backbone that supports secure, efficient, and scalable blockchain interactions.
- Highlighted Project: GoPlus
GoPlus redefines Web3 user security by implementing comprehensive, modular protection layers. Its advanced solutions proactively guard users against vulnerabilities, scams, and exploits, significantly enhancing trust and safety within Monad’s decentralized environment.
Additional Essential Infrastructure Projects:
- Dialect – Enhances decentralized communication channels, offering secure, real-time messaging infrastructure crucial for dApps.
Collectively, these infrastructure providers ensure Monad’s underlying systems remain secure, stable, and resilient, ultimately supporting sustained growth and wider blockchain adoption.
16. Real-World Assets (RWA)
Monad’s RWA category focuses on tokenizing tangible assets, bridging traditional finance and blockchain.
Projects include:
17. Intents
This category features projects designed to optimize trade intent management and execution across decentralized markets.
Key projects:
- Aori – Facilitating efficient order fulfillment.
- ConvergenceRFQ – Specialized in request-for-quote protocols.
- Symm – Enhancing trade execution precision.
18. Tools
Dedicated to supporting ecosystem analysis and management through advanced tooling and analytics.
Featured tools:
- BlockVision – Comprehensive blockchain data explorer.
- GasDotZip – Gas optimization tools.
- ChainPro – Blockchain analytics and management platform.
- Flipside Crypto – Advanced analytics and user engagement metrics.
Source: BlockVision Website
19. Indexers
Monad’s Indexer category consists of specialized projects designed to efficiently organize, query, and serve blockchain data, significantly improving developer experiences and application performance across the ecosystem.
Featured Projects:
- The Graph – Leading decentralized indexing protocol enabling efficient and secure data queries for dApps.
- SubQuery – Robust blockchain data indexing and query solutions tailored for decentralized applications.
- Pangea – Simplifies blockchain data accessibility with optimized indexing infrastructure.
- SQD – Streamlines blockchain data querying with enhanced developer tooling.
- Reservoir – Specialized indexing solutions focused on NFT data aggregation and analytics.
- Starbloom – Advanced AI-driven blockchain data indexing, enabling real-time insights.
- Goldsky – Comprehensive platform offering scalable and fast indexing solutions for Web3 developers.
- Unmarshal – Provides multi-chain blockchain indexing services, enhancing data accessibility and analytics capabilities.
Together, these indexers form the backbone of Monad’s data infrastructure, enabling efficient, fast, and reliable access to blockchain information critical for ecosystem growth and innovation.
20. Stablecoins
Monad’s Stablecoin category supports stable value assets critical for ecosystem stability and transactions.
Key projects:
- Jigsaw DeFi – Advanced stablecoin management.
- Theo Network – Stablecoin infrastructure supporting broader DeFi applications.
21. Memecoins & Launchpads
Dedicated to launching and nurturing community-driven tokens and playful memecoins, enhancing ecosystem engagement.
Highlight projects:
- Nad.fun – Memecoin-focused launchpad.
Source: Nad.fun
- MonadPad – General-purpose token launchpad supporting diverse projects.
Source: Monad Pad
Conclusion
The Monad ecosystem’s diversity, with a strong DeFi focus and innovative projects across categories, positions it for significant growth, especially post-mainnet launch. The detailed categorization and notable projects highlight its potential to host a wide range of decentralized applications, leveraging its high throughput and EVM compatibility.
