Keone Hon is the CEO and co-founder of Monad, a parallel EVM blockchain providing portability and performance. ^[1]

Education

Hon received his B.S. in Computer Science and Math, Master of Finance, and M.Eng in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011. ^[5]

Career

Hon worked as a quant for Getco LLC, an American proprietary algorithmic trading and electronic market firm, where he built systems for optimizing low-latency trading strategies. In 2013, he joined Jump Trading Group, a data and research-driven trading business, as a quant and trading team lead for eight years. ^[1]

In 2021, he became a quantitative developer for Jump Crypto, a Web3 infrastructure development and investment division of Jump Trading Group, where he led a team of engineers in building DeFi apps and infrastructure until February 2022. The following month, he co-founded Monad Labs alongside James Hunsaker and Eunice Giarta. ^[1]

Monad Labs

In an interview with DeFi Dad on The Edge Podcast, Hon discusses how Monad was created and why it was developed, starting with his background: ^[2]

“I guess the story starts when I joined Jump Trading in late 2013. Jump Trading is a great automated trading firm with various teams and strategies deeply involved in traditional finance. I joined a team primarily focused on Futures Trading and eventually became the team lead, helping scale it up to become a major participant in multiple Futures markets. Along the way, we built a highly performant trading system with fast tick-to-trade times, making split-second decisions on incoming exchange packets and swiftly placing orders. The competitive nature of markets where latency is critical drove us to continually innovate and delve into low-level performance system building. We continued this work for several years.”

“Then, I joined the crypto team at Jump in mid-2021, right during the peak of Solana Summer. We joined in May, coinciding with the Degen Ape Academy mint on Solana, which ignited excitement around Solana NFTs. I spent about six months at Jump Crypto, mainly focusing on Solana DeFi. It became evident that Solana offered something unique and exciting with its low fees, high throughput, and suitability for high-frequency trading. However, it also made sense for everyday users who were tired of high transaction fees. In exploring the landscape, I realized there was a significant demand for a performant EVM. Consequently, I left Jump at the beginning of 2022.”

He then shared why Monad Labs was founded: ^[2]

“Along with two other individuals, my former coworker James, whom I began working with at Jump in 2014, and my MIT classmate Eunice, whom I met in 2010 and has a background in fintech product management, we decided to start Monad Labs. Our goal was to enhance the performance of the EVM. We initially delved into crypto, learning about Solana, and soon recognized the pressing need for a more efficient EVM.”

“Monad's mission is to drastically enhance the performance of the EVM. Currently, Ethereum processes about a million transactions per day, while Monad aims to increase this throughput to a billion transactions per day. I prefer discussing throughput in terms of daily transactions because it allows for clearer reasoning about successful applications. For instance, imagine an app with millions of daily active users, each conducting around 50 transactions per day. That amounts to 50 million transactions daily, equivalent to 500 TPS. It's evident that any app achieving widespread adoption, especially among non-crypto natives, will require significantly higher throughput.”

When asked about how other EVM devs view Monad, Hon responded: ^[2]

“I believe people are generally very supportive and excited about our vision. It's quite an easy sell, honestly. Everyone desires lower fees and higher throughput. It reminds me of a commercial from the 2000s that I enjoyed as a kid. There were these Turtles called the Slow Skis who complained because their internet speed was too fast after switching providers. No one wants to be like the Slow Skis; no one wants higher fees or limited throughput. When speaking with application developers, there's excitement because lower fees and more plentiful transactions improve the user experience, making it easier to attract users. Additionally, building on Monad opens up new possibilities because developers don't have to worry as much about gas fees and optimization, which are significant considerations in the Web3 environment.”

Interviews

Monad's Parallelization

On "The Chopping Block" podcast, Hon discussed the challenges Solana's blockchain faced due to its non-adaptive fee structure, resulting in transaction difficulties amidst high demand. He also highlighted Monad's recent fundraising success of $225 million led by Paradigm and emphasized the project's focus on optimizing various layers of the blockchain stack to address scalability concerns. The conversation delved into the importance of efficient state access for blockchain scalability and discussed legal issues surrounding market manipulation and protocol attacks. Additionally, community engagement in cryptocurrency projects and the complexities of network congestion on Solana are explored, providing insights into current developments and challenges within the crypto space. ^[3]

“We were keen on optimizing and enhancing every aspect of the stack, whether it was at the execution layer, the database layer beneath it, or the consensus layer above it. Ensuring strong architectural control over all components and their integration was crucial. Our team believed that building an integrated system where we could optimize all parts was the best approach.”

Parallelized L1 EVM

On February 27th, 2024, Hon delved into the importance of low fees in enabling mainstream adoption of blockchain applications and the need for performance optimization to support high-interactivity applications. Monad's approach to parallel execution and performance enhancement was explored, positioning it closer to supporting a billion daily transactions. Comparisons were drawn between Monad, Ethereum, and Solana in terms of transaction costs and hardware requirements, underscoring trade-offs in state management complexity. ^[4]

“I'm really focused on supporting developers that aspire to build things that have mass user adoption, so in my mind, I always have this idea of like people playing RuneScape, and you know, like acquiring items and leveling up their character and earning achievements and like for a blockchain to be able to support that level of complexity application let alone that level of users like literally millions of users is just going to require you know a much faster car than you know the solutions that we have right now”