Reviving Ethereum Culture? What Magic Potions Does Monad Have?
1. The Fallen Ethereum Village
Once upon a time, in the Ethereum village, there lived a group of green Pepe frogs. This was once one of the liveliest realms, where high decentralization and strong security gave rise to a prosperous economy.
Guided by these principles, the villagers held regular elections based on their interests to appoint leaders who oversaw the generation of blocks that recorded transactions every 12 seconds. In this way, they diligently managed the thriving economy of the village.
Now, the former glory of Ethereum has begun to fade, with meme viruses spreading and the village’s power weakened. Shadows loom over the streets, and the green Pepe frogs shuffle heavily, aimlessly wandering through the desolate, dimly lit village.
However, some green Pepe frogs still yearn to restore Ethereum’s lost splendor. They support the “L2 Reform,” a movement aimed at revitalizing the village. Through their efforts, Ethereum begins to flourish again, achieving economic vitality that was once deemed impossible.
But the L2 Reform also has its limitations. Nearby villages like Solana and Sui, though young and full of instability, are rapidly evolving through unprecedented scientific revolutions. Their innovations make complex financial transactions seamless, while Ethereum, despite reforms, still struggles. Consequently, rumors circulate among the Pepe frogs about the possibility of relocating to these neighboring villages.
Then, on a fateful day, a purple Pepe wizard appeared in the Ethereum village.
2. The Arrival of the Purple Pepe Wizard
Clad in a purple robe, the Pepe wizard gazed sadly at the lost glory of the Ethereum village, determined to establish a new realm called Monad.
One day, he appeared before the green Pepe frogs and announced his grand plan to create Monad village. He gathered the green Pepe frogs in the central square and began listening to their thoughts.
Green Pepe Frog 1 spoke up: “I hope life in Monad will be like that of Ethereum. Although Ethereum lacks the scalability of Solana or Sui, I never considered leaving because their cultures are vastly different from ours.”
Green Pepe Frog 2 added: “Maintaining the same way of life and culture is important, but I also hope for a system that is as efficient as those in other villages. While Ethereum is secure, it’s not sufficient for enterprises that pursue speed and agility.”
The wizard remembered their wishes and promised to create Monad with the cultural characteristics of Ethereum and the scalability of Solana and Sui. He contemplated the powerful spells needed to realize this dream—a village compatible with Ethereum’s traditions that could meet the efficiency advancements of the new era.
He then shared his vision with the eager Pepe frogs, igniting their hope for a true home that could offer the best of both worlds.
3. Secret Spell 1: Delayed Execution
One limitation of Ethereum village’s scalability lies in the processing of each transaction during the consensus process, which is a necessary step in generating each new block.
In Ethereum, the leader proposing a block must calculate all transactions within it beforehand to ensure the validity of each transaction. Furthermore, the validating nodes receiving this block must also compute all transactions to verify the block’s legitimacy and vote.
Since the consensus process involves computation and communication among villagers, the time allocated for processing transactions is very limited, ultimately leading to constrained scalability.
To address this issue, the purple Pepe wizard introduced a new spell called “Delayed Execution.” This spell separates the “consensus” process (ordering villagers’ transactions) from the “execution” process (calculating the results of those transactions).
In simple terms, instead of achieving consensus and execution simultaneously for each block, consensus is reached for block N while execution occurs for block N-1 (where transaction ordering has already been established).
By allowing an entire block’s time for execution, this method significantly increases the number of transactions that can be processed within the same timeframe.
Advanced Spell: Delayed Merkle Root
In Ethereum, nodes compute before reaching consensus to ensure the validity of the block. However, in Monad’s delayed execution system, consensus and execution are separated. This opens up the possibility for malicious nodes to ignore previously reached consensus transactions or arbitrarily alter computational states.
To prevent this, Monad embeds the Merkle root (the computed result of block N-10) into the proposal of block N. If more than two-thirds of nodes reach consensus on block N, it signifies consensus on the computation of block N-10.
If any node’s computation result for block N-10 does not match the Merkle root contained in block N, that node will be removed from the consensus starting from block N. The 10-block delay for the Merkle root ensures timely detection of any computational errors.
It is worth noting that Monad’s block time is 1 second, but this does not mean that Monad’s finality requires 10 seconds. Thanks to Monad’s MonadBFT system, single-slot finality can be achieved, resulting in finality within 1 second.
4. Secret Spell 2: Transaction Hashes
The clever purple Pepe wizard contemplated how the village leaders could quickly broadcast block proposals to other nodes.
In Ethereum, the typical approach is to package the entire block proposal (including all transactions) and send it across the network.
However, the Pepe wizard realized that if Monad adopted this method, broadcasting block proposals containing numerous transactions would be a daunting and labor-intensive task.
To solve this problem, the purple Pepe wizard introduced the concept of “transaction hashes.” Since all transactions submitted by villagers had already been propagated through the network, each node maintained a record of Monad village transactions in its own memory pool.
This meant that the leader no longer needed to transmit a complete list of transactions in each block proposal. Instead, the leader could simply reference the transactions by sending their hash values.
Thus, Monad’s block proposals would only contain the hash values of each transaction. Upon receiving these hash values, other nodes could easily compare them with their own transaction records.
5. Secret Spell 3: MonadBFT
In Monad village, the order of transactions within each block and the consensus for block creation are controlled by MonadBFT, a high-performance consensus mechanism based on HotStuff. This phased Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) algorithm allows for consensus to be reached in two steps.
The role of the block leader is randomly selected based on each participant’s staking share. In Monad, the efficiency of block construction is higher than in Ethereum village because each block N proposal is transmitted along with the Quorum Certificate (QC) for the previous block N-1, indicating that more than two-thirds of the nodes have verified that block.
The process unfolds as follows:
- Leader N broadcasts the proposal for block N, accompanied by the QC for block N-1.
- Validators verify block N and send their votes to leader N+1.
- Leader N+1 shares the proposal for block N+1, along with the QC for block N.
However, even with QC N, validators cannot immediately confirm block N, as the nature of the blockchain does not ensure that all participants are online and synchronized.
To fully secure block N, validators must send their “yes” votes for block N+1, which contains QC N, to leader N+2. When leader N+2 generates QC N+1, it confirms the successful completion of round N+1, thereby finalizing block N.
Thus, with clever magic, the purple Pepe wizard guides Monad village into a new era.
6. Secret Spell 4: Parallel Execution
In Monad, to handle a large number of village transactions, the purple Pepe wizard designed a new spell that processes transactions in parallel rather than serially like in Ethereum village.
With delayed execution, execution only begins after consensus on the transaction order of the block is reached. Monad village consists of many skilled executors, each responsible for processing transactions, independently calculating their inputs and outputs, and creating a pending list.
These inputs and outputs do not immediately alter the village’s state but wait in a suspended magical state, ready to be submitted in the order determined by consensus. This submission merges the outputs into the current state, weaving a seamless and orderly tapestry of magic.
However, a twist arises. Parallel processing introduces the possibility of transaction conflicts, which are rare in the ordered Ethereum village but present a new challenge in Monad.
For instance, if one transaction (transaction b) shows villager A gifting 1 ETH to villager B, while another transaction (transaction c) shows B spending that ETH at the village inn, their order becomes critical. If transaction c attempts to execute before transaction b, it will fail. In such cases, the conflicting transactions are rearranged, and transaction c will wait until transaction b completes before executing.
Therefore, in Monad, the core of parallel execution lies in ordering: the results are computed in parallel, but state updates are merged in the precise order required.
7. Secret Spell 5: MonadDb
The purple Pepe wizard’s creative ideas didn’t stop there. He conjured MonadDb, a custom database unique to Monad village, specifically designed to store the state of the blockchain. Ethereum relies on a complex Merkle Patricia Trie, known for its resilience but also for its inefficiency for external clients.
MonadDb was designed with the village’s parallel execution in mind, supporting multiple reads and writes simultaneously with high accuracy. Unlike traditional databases that require each task to complete before moving to the next, MonadDb employs asynchronous I/O magic, allowing tasks to overlap seamlessly and paving the way for true parallel transaction processing.
8. Come Visit Monad Village!
Through a series of wondrous spells and intricate magic, the purple Pepe wizard has created Monad village. Here, Ethereum’s trusted accounts, cryptography, transaction formats, languages, and wallets blend effortlessly with the scalability of Solana and Sui. Now, Monad is thriving, aiming to achieve its dream of processing 10,000 transactions per second.
Born from wisdom and hope, will Monad village be able to save the world plagued by meme viruses and help Ethereum regain its glory? Only time will tell.