Do We Need Another L1? - Inside Monad’s Parallel EVM with Co-Founder Keone Hon

Monad just launched Mainnet! That’s why Ryan sits down with Monad co-founder Keone Hon today. We ask the blunt question: do we really need another general-purpose L1? Why not just build this as an Ethereum L2 instead? Keone explains how Monad’s parallel, pipelined EVM works under tight consumer-hardware constraints (32GB RAM, 2TB SSD, 100 Mbps), delivering ~500M gas/sec, 400ms blocks, and fast finality while preserving decentralization. Enjoy the episode! ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔵COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow 🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, & EARN https://bankless.cc/fraxnet 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR L2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 💤EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Another L1? 1:36 Why L1 vs L2? 2:46 Decentralization 10:19 Run at Home vs Datacenter Chains 12:09 The Purpose of a Blockchain 14:06 The Purpose of Monad 16:00 Why EVM? 28:33 Solana for the EVM? 29:47 Monad vs Ethereum 34:23 Monad Scaling 36:40 Ethereum Roadmap 39:43 How Monad Benefits Ethereum 42:51 Keone’s Background 50:49 How Fast is Too Fast? 59:12 MEV 1:04:07 Monad Layer2s? 1:05:14 Monad Launch Decentralization 1:06:00 Launch Ecosystem 1:08:22 Monad Token 1:16:55 L1 Token Valuations 1:19:18 Monad vs MegaETH 1:23:59 Monad’s Success Case 1:25:57 Mainnet 1:27:11 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Keone Hon https://x.com/keoneHD Monad https://x.com/monad Monad Website https://www.monad.xyz/ Monad Links https://linktr.ee/monad_xyz ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠