Monad has a serious problem.
During the bear market, it was understandable that Monad wasn't getting much traction. But now that the market is warming up - and Robinhood chain in particular is red hot - the fact that Monad still lacks organic activity is very concerning.
The core problem, as I see it, is the market doesn't want or need what Monad is offering. Monad is a decentralized and neutral chain which is also fast. But is the market actually interested in this offering? Just look at the new products that have been successful in the last 12 months: Hyperliquid, Pump, and now Robinhood. None of them have particularly strong decentralization or neutrality. The market is telling you loud and clear that it doesn't care about the core value propositions of Monad.
Monad may have high TVL and transaction levels, but that is mainly due to incentives. The MON price is decent, but that is mainly due to the ex-Jump cofounders strategically defending the price with buybacks. I don't blame them for doing these things, but they are unsustainable. Now that Monad has been live for 10 months and the market is starting to warm up, it should be getting some organic traction.
But sadly, these days I see very few signs of real excitement or enthusiasm about Monad, either onchain or on the timeline. The most consistently positive Monad voices on the timeline are Monad employees (and a smattering of small accounts which exclusively post cartoonishly optimistic things about Monad and probably aren't real). Other than them, it seems like no one really cares.
I think for at least the next six months all new activity and building in crypto will be on Robinhood and other new chains like it. Soon Arc will launch, and probably Ink will try to make a comeback by dropping a token. Meanwhile, Solana and Base will both be fighting to maintain relevance. And who knows what Tempo will end up doing.
If current trends continue, it looks like Monad will remain sidelined.
If I had to give some advice, I would suggest a radical course of action. Monad should do a big pivot by dropping the central "Open" narrative and beginning to build first party apps. So keep making the chain faster and more decentralized, plus keep working on innovative features like MEV resistance - but drop the neutrality. Use that huge treasury and your talented employee pool to build cool apps. If you do that, it should attract retail users and other builders to the chain. This might be a terrible idea - what do I know anyway? - but what is clear is that something needs to be done.
Something about Monad needs to change before it's too late.