Metropolis is now live. Six weeks to build the next generation of startups on Monad. $250k in prizes across 4 tracks. Submissions close October 13th: monad.xyz/metropolis

What makes a strong bounty project? @MatthewFoyle drops the alpha: The best projects solve a real problem, have clear utility, and feel genuinely good to use. Solve something real. Make the experience great. Use the tools where they make sense. Check out @dynamic_xyz bounty here: hackathon.monad.xyz/tracks/b…

Before writing code, interrogate the idea. Ask the uncomfortable questions early: - Will anyone actually use this? - Is this worth building? - What market does it serve? Tips and tricks by @harpaljadeja

What are you building at Metropolis?

I spent this @monad metropolis hackathon on Interlude, which is the Ephemeral Rollup Kanddle is the app I built on it so you can watch the idea work, instead of reading a diagram. The game is simple, two people open a 1v1 on Monad, lock the same stack, and tap squares on a tape. If the print hits your square you score. If it misses, you do not. When the clock ends, the higher stack takes the pot. Do that on a chain the usual way and every tap is an L1 transaction. Even if the wallet is quiet, you still pay gas, you still wait on a block, and you still do not get the result back in the same breath. Twenty taps in ninety seconds becomes twenty confirmations. The match cannot live there. Do that on a server and the match is instant, because the server is just editing a row. It can ignore a tap, rewrite a stack, or vanish and take the room with it. The chips may sit in a contract. The fight does not. You are trusting whoever runs the box. The Ephemeral Rollup is the third path. Same Solidity, same address. You sign a session once. After that each tap is a real contract call on the node, both players share that state, and the node later commits the net diffs back to Monad. Fast while you play. Settled when it counts. If the node lies, the batch is replayable and the bond is there. v1 is still permissioned. I am not pretending otherwise. That is why Kanddle exists. I needed a live room two people can actually play, and I needed the pot to stay in the contract they already deposited into. A raw chain breaks the room. A server breaks the pot. Interlude is the ER that lets both stay true. The app is rough. Plenty still broken. If you want early access, say so in the comments.

A lot of the apps you use onchain are powered by infrastructure you never see. @uttam_singhk from @Alchemy explains the developer infrastructure behind products across crypto, from apps and wallets to institutional platforms. See the Alchemy bounty here: hackathon.monad.xyz/tracks/b…

Building is getting easier. Knowing what to build is getting harder. One simple way to validate an idea: search X and Reddit for repeated questions, complaints, and frustrations. If enough people are struggling with the same problem, that’s a strong signal there may be something worth building.

Metropolis is coming to Shenzhen 🇨🇳 ​Join us on September 26th at the Metropolis Hacker House Hear from experts and VCs, co-work alongside other teams and get hands-on support from mentors Sign up: luma.com/metropolis-shenzhen…

Your frontend shouldn’t have to query the blockchain for everything. An indexer sits between your smart contracts and your frontend, collecting and organizing onchain data into fast, purpose-built APIs. Check out the @envio_indexer bounty here: hackathon.monad.xyz/tracks/b…

Can AI review code effectively? Yes, but one pass is not enough. Even the same model, with the same prompt, on the same codebase can find different issues across multiple runs. The real question is how many passes it takes before the extra compute stops finding meaningful new issues.

x402 is the best when trying out new API services or completing one-off tasks via API endpoints! Monad API Hub launched a couple of days ago, it has a pretty great set of services that can be used in pretty creative ways to automate a lot of your work! The video below is a quick intro. Monad API hub: app.monad.xyz/agents/api-hub 1.25x speed recommended.

Monad docs are now available in Chinese 🇨🇳 Everything you need to start building on Monad, now in another language. Monad 中文文档现已上线 🇨🇳 开始在 Monad 上构建所需的一切，现在也可以用中文阅读。 → docs.monad.xyz/

AI is changing how security work gets done. Defenders can review more code, test more hypotheses, and explore more edge cases than ever before. But the same tools are available to attackers. So the job is now twofold: use AI to find bugs faster, and make sure the AI tools themselves run with limited access, limited permissions, and safe failure modes.

Start by looking at what’s missing. Go through the Metropolis resources, bounties, and tracks. If you already use a lot of Web3 apps, think about the gaps and frustrations you’ve noticed. Metropolis is your chance to build the thing you wish already existed. hackathon.monad.xyz/tracks

Metropolis is coming to SF 🌉 Join us September 26th to build the next generation of startups on Monad, network with VCs, and meet other founders Featured Speakers: - @avichal, Co-Founder of Electric Capital - @rohinlohe, Product Lead at Cloudflare - @pankajbengani, CEO of Meld Register here: luma.com/metropolis-sf-sep-2…

The biggest Metropolis alpha might just be access. You can reach many builders and mentors on X, Telegram, or Discord. But for some people, the best way to connect with them is directly through the Metropolis platform. Check out mentors and ask them questions here: hackathon.monad.xyz/mentors

Don’t reinvent the wheel during Metropolis. Indexers, APIs, intents, identity, payments, and other building blocks may already solve part of your problem. Read through the Resources and Bounties pages, understand what exists, then find a unique angle and build something different. hackathon.monad.xyz/tracks

RPC providers give you the raw blockchain data. The next layer is turning that into something your app can actually use: parsed transactions, token prices, labels, spam detection, and other enrichment. @muanlartins explains where @zerion is strongest: turning raw onchain data into useful, structured data for applications. Join Metropolis: hackathon.monad.xyz