Original Article Title: "Monad Founder's Fancy Quarrel with Arthur Hayes Award"

Original Article Author: jk, Odaily Planet Daily

On November 29, BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes publicly criticized Monad, a mainnet that had just launched 6 days prior, during an interview with Altcoin Daily, suggesting it "may drop 99%" and labeling it as "yet another high market cap, low float VC coin." This statement quickly sparked controversy, leading to a heated public confrontation between Monad's co-founder Keone Hon and Hayes on Twitter.

Below is the full transcript of their dialogue.

Full Dialogue

· Keone Hon, Monad Founder

Dear @CryptoHayes, I respect everything you have built for this industry. Perpetual contracts are an amazing innovation, and I believe they will continue to grow rapidly. You have had a tremendous impact on our industry.

Over the past few days, I have seen your multiple comments on Monad. While I am sure some of the comments may have been taken out of context, I thought you might be interested in understanding what sets Monad apart and why it is not just another L1.

I believe back when you were innovating at BitMEX, you also had to deal with a lot of FUD, and you chose to respond positively to those comments and move forward. I intend to do the same.

Here are some key points about why Monad is different:

· It is truly fast. You withdraw from Coinbase, and the funds arrive in 1-2 seconds. This experience is like magic.

· It is built on an entirely new tech stack that enables this speed on a highly decentralized network. Currently, there are 170 globally distributed validator nodes, with more to come in the future.

· This is significant because while everyone is saying blockchain must be centralized, and it must be a data chain (or single sequencer) to achieve high performance, Monad proves the opposite is possible. Enterprises, asset issuers, and global developers want decentralization and trust neutrality—they do not want to be at the mercy of a sequencer.

· Monad's codebase is fully open-source and audited, built entirely from scratch in C++ and Rust, introducing many high-frequency trading-style optimizations.

· Monad introduced MonadBFT, which is a cutting-edge consensus mechanism that addresses the tail-forking issue of pipelined consensus. This alone is a significant advancement, as BFT consensus itself requires multi-round communication; pipelining (interleaving) block production is the only way to achieve fast block times; and previously, pipelining was susceptible to a single block reorg (tail-fork), leading to MEV attacks. But not anymore!

· Monad introduced asynchronous execution, allowing consensus and execution to happen in separate lanes, further improving efficiency. Ethereum is attempting to adopt this technology.

· Monad also has a range of other technological innovations, such as a full JIT compiler that compiles EVM bytecode to native code, a new database (MonadDb), a new block propagation mechanism (RaptorCast), and parallel execution.

The ecosystem is just getting started, but there is already a new wave of applications being built by a group of young, driven builders.

· The Monad Foundation and Category Labs team are fully committed to continuing to drive progress in this space. Research contributions in areas such as asynchronous execution, gas pricing, and privacy will continue to propel the industry forward. It's the 6th day since mainnet launch, and our outstanding team will keep doing remarkable things.

· Finally, MON is the first token on Coinbase's token sale platform, aimed at allowing as many people as possible to obtain the token before the public listing. The token sale follows a "bottom-up fill" approach, preventing whales from grabbing the entire allocation as seen with many other launches.

If you'd like some MON to try out this network, let me know, and I'd be happy to send you some. Once again, thank you for your contributions to this space. See you on-chain.

· Arthur Hayes, BitMEX Co-Founder, KOL

I know nothing about your technology. I believe it’s good; everyone who mentioned you and your team says you're damn smart. But your tokenomics almost guarantee MON will only go down.

Tell your community how this chain digests 90% of the tokens without collapsing. Tell your community how much real utility is needed to create organic demand to absorb the sell pressure after early investors and team unlock. They sell with no problem; your early supporters and team took risks and deserve a good reward. Tell the community how you maintain this price level with about 1% monthly inflation only from staking rewards. Educate me fucking not. I don’t care what your tech has achieved; I’m a trader. Write me a long paragraph about capital flows to make me look like an idiot.

Before that, MON was a hot potato. Playing short-term is fun, but due to supply and demand dynamics, the overall trend will only go downward.

· Keone Hon

I'm not sure where you got your information, but it's incorrect.

The inflation rate is 2% per year, much lower than almost all other L1s.

Locked tokens cannot be staked, which is also unprecedented in the current environment.

The Coinbase token sale adopts a "retail-first fill" approach, prioritizing retail participants.

Everything is built from scratch to substantially expand the capability boundaries of a truly decentralized blockchain.

You only live once, it's worth a try.

I think if you take a close look at what my team and I are doing, you will find that many things are different. We are not just following the same script.

If you have any specific criticisms of Monad, please let me know, I am all ears.

· Arthur Hayes

If you unlock all tokens now, you will be different from all the so-called ETH killers before. Do it if you dare.

· Keone Hon

You did not answer my question—what specific criticisms do you have of Monad? I am pretty sure the companies in your VC portfolio also have locked tokens.

Furthermore, you yourself said that you heard our team is very talented, and the technology is good. What if it can make it? The current state of blockchain cannot be the final form of blockchain. If we all were like you, then everyone should pack up and go home early to sleep.

· Arthur Hayes

It's all about traffic, bro. Can you dare to unlock all tokens now and let the market find the true price for your coin?

(As of the time of writing, the two sides have not further clashed.)

Community Response: Hayes, You've Crossed the Line

This confrontation in the crypto community has sparked a lot of discussion, with many questioning the logic of Hayes's criticism.

Someone dug up Hayes' previous remarks and directly countered, asking: "Then why did you think it could reach $10 in the first place?"

@Doudounadz pointed out that Hayes never asked these questions to the projects he invested in, "Strange, you never asked these questions to any team you've invested in. I don't quite understand this kind of hate, to be honest (although I can probably guess why)."

@gmoneyNFT even directly challenged, saying: "Then you demonstrate by unlocking all the tokens in your investment portfolio's companies as well."

Some also viewed this debate from a more macro perspective. @0xMardiansyah believes this precisely reflects the fundamental difference between traders and developers: traders do not care about technology, only focusing on price; while developers painstakingly build from scratch, considering all aspects including tokenomics, only to be judged by people who only look at the price chart.

@NFT5lut said: Hayes is Monad's Barry Silbert, besides creating panic to make people sell off and then buying the dip at a low price, he has never been honest about anything.

MON Price Movement

The Monad mainnet was officially launched on November 24th, with MON tokens also starting trading.

It is worth noting that MON's debut day performance was lackluster, with the opening price falling below the public sale price at one point, relatively mild for a highly anticipated L1 token. In stark contrast to recent projects like Plasma, which sold out within seconds, MON's public sale took a longer time to clear, but then slowly rose. However, nearly a week after the mainnet launch, the MON price fell from above $0.04 from its peak and is currently fluctuating around $0.03.

An Asymmetric Public Opinion Battle

The interesting aspect of this confrontation is that the two sides are fundamentally not on the same page.

In the court of public opinion, critics have more advantage than builders. Hayes made it clear from the beginning: "I know nothing about your technology," "I don't care what your technology has done, I'm a trader." Hayes's argument is not new, "High FDV low circulating supply VC coins will eventually crash" has been one of the most mainstream narratives in the crypto market over the past two years. A large number of retail investors have lost money in projects with similar structures, and this collective memory makes any criticism pointing to "VC harvesting" easily resonate, especially during a bear market.

In terms of messaging impact, Hayes indeed hit the emotional chord.

For Keone, this is a tough battle to win. Technical superiority needs time for validation, ecosystem thriving requires developers voting with their feet, while Hayes's doubt is instantaneous, intuitive, and easy to understand.

This is a debate that will definitely not have a conclusion. What will truly determine Monad's fate can only be whether, in the next few years, developers have actually built something valuable with it.

From this perspective, what Keone said is not wrong: "You only live once, it's worth a try."

Original Article Link

Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:

Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia