Remember when everyone said the next bull run would be different? That projects would finally learn from the ghosts of 2021 and stop dumping absurd fully diluted valuations on retail the second they go live? Yeah… about that.
I watched Monad hit the markets with the kind of hype usually reserved for Ethereum killers and Solana flippenings. For about 48 hours it actually looked like the script had changed. Then Arthur Hayes opened his mouth, the CEO fired back, and suddenly we’re staring at a 50%+ drawdown wondering if anything ever actually changes in this space.
The Launch That Had Everything (Except Staying Power)
Let’s be real for a second. Monad came in hot. Parallel EVM, 10k TPS claims, solid dev team, decent funding story, the works. The kind of narrative that makes degens empty their Solana meme coin bags without a second thought.
And for a minute? It worked. Price ripped from sub-$0.03 listings straight through $0.048 like it was offended by the number. Volume was nuts. Twitter was nothing but purple logos and “told you so” posts. You could practically hear the paper hands shaking as they tried to decide whether to take 5x or wait for 20x.
Then came the reality check.
Arthur Hayes Drops the Bomb
Look, I like Arthur. The man built an empire trading crypto volatility and isn’t afraid to speak his mind. But when he decides to aim the cannon at a fresh launch, things get spicy fast.
“The FDV is insane for a network that isn’t even live yet. This isn’t 2021.”
– Something Arthur Hayes definitely implied, if not said word-for-word
He wasn’t wrong to ask questions. A lot of these new L1s come out the gate with $5-10 billion fully diluted valuations while the actual circulating supply is 4% and the team plus investors hold 70% locked up for years. It’s the same playbook we’ve seen a hundred times.
What made this different was the response.
The CEO Actually Clapped Back
Most founders would have ignored it or posted some vague “building” meme. Keone Hon went full thread mode. Respect for the funding raised, respect for perps innovation, then straight into defending the tokenomics, the roadmap, the codebase. Polite, but firm.
In any other market that might have been enough to steady the ship. But crypto doesn’t do “reasonable discussion” when prices are moving. It does tribal warfare.
Team believers doubled down. Critics smelled blood. Early buyers who were up 3-4x suddenly remembered they had bills to pay before Christmas.
From Hero to Zero in Seven Days Flat
As I write this, Monad is hugging $0.024 like it’s the last lifeboat on the Titanic. That’s over 50% down from the local top and basically back to where the smartest money started accumulating before the public even knew listings were confirmed.
- Spot volume actually up 35% – people are trading this move hard
- Futures open interest down 13% – leverage players are getting flushed
- Price stuck to the lower Bollinger Band like it’s glued there
- RSI refusing to go properly oversold
Translation? This isn’t random shaking. This is distribution.
The Chart Doesn’t Lie (And It’s Ugly Right Now)
Let me paint you a picture most people don’t want to see right now.
Every single bounce since the $0.048 rejection has been weaker than the last. Volume spikes only on the way down. The few green candles we get are low-conviction wicks that get sold into immediately. Classic bearish re-accumulation if I’ve ever seen it.
Right now $0.024 is the line in the sand. It’s the pre-launch accumulation zone, it’s the low from the first few hours of trading, it’s where a lot of patient money is sitting with bids.
If that goes? Honestly, we’re probably looking at low teens before this finds religion. And yeah, I said teens. That’s how these post-hype corrections work when sentiment flips.
So… Is This the Bottom?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Here’s what I’m watching personally:
- Can $0.024 hold as support on the weekly close?
- Does volume start drying up on the way down (capitulation) or stay elevated (distribution)?
- Any actual on-chain adoption news or just more Twitter drama?
- Broader market – because if Bitcoin rolls over from $90k, nothing is saving alts
I’ve been through enough of these cycles to know one thing with certainty: the projects that survive these kinds of drawdowns aren’t the ones with the best memes or the loudest influencers. They’re the ones that quietly build while everyone else is crying about price.
Monad still has a shot to be something real. The tech is interesting. The team seems competent. But right now? The market is teaching them a very old lesson: narrative gets you to the party, but tokenomics and timing decide if you get to stay.
Final Thoughts (From Someone Who’s Seen This Movie Before)
If you bought the top, I feel for you. Really. But this is crypto. Getting rekt on the way up is practically a rite of passage.
If you’re sitting on the sidelines waiting for “confirmation of bottom,” you might be waiting forever. The real moves often happen when everyone is still convinced it’s going lower.
And if you’re part of the team reading this? Take the feedback, keep building, and maybe – just maybe – consider that the market might actually be telling you something worth listening to.
Either way, $0.024 is where the story gets decided. Hold it, and we might have something. Lose it, and this becomes another cautionary tale with a cool GitHub repo.
See you on the other side.
Disclosure: The author holds no position in Monad at time of writing, but has definitely been wrong about bottoms before.
