Monad – A Solana Killer or a Different Beast?

Solana vs Monad: Similar Goals, Different Philosophies

Solana was never EVM-compatible, instead betting on Rust as the programming language of choice. This created a steeper learning curve for Solidity-native developers but allowed Solana to optimize performance at the base level. Monad, by contrast, is taking a more pragmatic approach: keep Solidity, but optimize the execution engine to handle more throughput with lower latency.

Reliability and Decentralization Trade-offs

Solana has faced several high-profile outages, including in February 2024 when the network went down for 5 hours. Monad’s architecture is being designed with a different validator approach, aiming to minimize such downtime while preserving decentralization. The team emphasizes fault isolation and modular consensus, inspired by lessons learned from Solana’s early struggles.

Where Monad Could Win

• EVM Compatibility: Monad allows developers to port apps from Ethereum with minimal changes.
• Throughput: Projected real-world throughput of over 10,000 TPS.
• Lower Latency: Finality under 1 second, crucial for DeFi and gaming.
• Better Reliability: An explicit focus on avoiding Solana’s history of outages.

Conclusion

So is Monad truly a “Solana killer”? Perhaps not in the literal sense. Solana has built a loyal developer and user community, and its unique architecture still offers benefits. But Monad doesn’t need to "kill" Solana to succeed. It simply needs to carve out a niche where Ethereum developers can scale seamlessly without adopting new languages or toolkits. In that sense, Monad might be less of a killer and more of a bridge—a way for Ethereum to evolve without fracturing.