Monad ships mainnet, while markets rebound

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.

Markets bounced as December rate-cut odds swung back above 80%, lifting BTC, equities and gold.

Monad launched mainnet yesterday, but MON’s day-one listing on Solana and Hyperliquid was arguably the bigger story. Finally, we dive into Galaxy’s investment case, with GLXY allowing investors to express a bullish crypto view while also getting exposure to AI compute infrastructure demand.

Indices

Markets bounced on Monday as odds swung back toward a potential December rate cut. Bitcoin climbed as much as 2.73%, briefly pushing above $89,000 before closing the day at $88,200 (+1.72%). The standout performer, however, was the Nasdaq 100 (+2.22%), posting its strongest daily gain since mid-May. The S&P 500 (+1.20%) also logged its best session in six weeks, while Gold (+1.75%) edged out BTC on the day, closing at its highest level since Nov. 14.

It seems markets have been hyperfocused on US rate developments over the past two weeks. Yesterday, Fed Governor Waller reiterated that the labor market’s weakness could justify a 25 bps cut in December. The latest dovish comments led to probabilities of a December rate cut rising above 80% on both Polymarket and the CME’s FedWatch Tool.

The chart below shows Polymarket’s odds for the Fed decision in December. Over the past two weeks, odds have swung sharply between a 25 bps cut and no change, underscoring the challenge the market faces in pricing near-term rates in the absence of economic data after the longest US government shutdown recorded.

Back on the crypto side, most indices outperformed BTC, catching a bid after a tough month for risk assets. The best-performing index was Crypto Miners (+8.4%), with Cleanspark (CLSK) up more than 10% after JP Morgan raised its guidance for the company. Notably, the No Revenue index (+7.9%) was the second-best performer in the cohort, suggesting that investors’ risk appetite may be increasing as macro concerns ease.

Market Update

Monad went live on mainnet yesterday, almost three years after the team first raised in January 2023. Monad represents a bold attempt to supercharge the EVM experience from the ground up, introducing a new consensus algorithm, a parallel execution engine, and a custom data architecture. The chain targets 10K+ TPS, 400ms blocks, and 800ms deterministic finality, though it remains to be seen how this fares in production. 

While Monad’s architecture may be novel, the fact that it took so long to come to market means it now faces an uphill battle catching up to more mature networks like Solana or even L2s like Base in terms of ecosystem activity, DEX volumes, TVL, stablecoins in circulation and so on. The chart below shows the top applications on Monad by TVL, as of today. The four largest apps are well established players in the EVM ecosystem, with Uniswap v4 topping the cohort with $25 million in TVL. 

The only “Monad-native” applications in the chart above are Kuru and Neverland.

Kuru is a DEX with a hybrid order book-AMM design. The platform also offers a DEX aggregator. Kuru hopes to take advantage of Monad’s speed and low fees to provide a venue for market makers to handle liquid assets, while also offering passive liquidity solutions to support long-tail assets. The team raised $2 million in a seed round led by Electric Capital in July 2024. 

Neverland is a lending protocol built on Aave v3’s architecture. Per DeFi Llama, the protocol has about $1 million in deposits and $420,000 in borrows. So far, Monad apps are not particularly exciting, but rather things we’ve already seen time and again in other ecosystems (DEXs, money markets, etc.). It will be interesting to monitor if truly innovative apps emerge on the chain over the coming months. Personally, I’m interested to see if prop AMMs will be able to thrive on Monad, or if they remain a Solana-only phenomenon.

Perhaps more exciting than Monad’s launch itself was the day-one listing of MON by Solana and Hyperliquid. While Hyperliquid has already supported other high profile launches on day one (e.g., PUMP, XPL, 2Z), it was the first time Solana users were able to trade a non-native asset at launch with relatively deep liquidity. The game changer that allows Solana to be competitive with CEXs and Hyperliquid on this front is prop AMMs combined with hardened bridge infrastructure (e.g. Wormhole).MON trading volumes on Solana have surpassed $60 million over the past 24 hours, roughly 60% more than Hyperliquid spot ($37 million). When stacked against CEXs, Solana would have been the fifth-largest venue by trading volume, only behind Upbit, Coinbase, Bybit and Bithumb. With xStocks, battle-tested bridge infrastructure and prop AMMs, there is no technical barrier preventing Solana from supporting every relevant asset. While it’s tempting to frame yesterday’s events as Hyperliquid vs. Solana (competition is good), the more important story is onchain, decentralized trading venues gradually outcompeting CEXs over the coming years.

Galaxy Digital ($GLXY) Investment Case 

Galaxy Digital (“Galaxy”) is turning into one of the cleanest listed ways to own the institutional build out of crypto markets, while also getting exposure to AI compute infrastructure demand. Here we take a closer look at its business segments in light of the recent selloff. The market still mostly files it as a volatile trading shop, but the mix is shifting toward more durable revenue being at the center of institutional crypto flows and contracted infrastructure income, which should support a more stable earnings profile through the cycle.

Recent results show what the model can earn when conditions are favorable, with the latest quarter delivering about $505 million of net income against $3.2 billion of balance sheet equity. In Q3, earnings mix translated into about $250 million of EBITDA from Digital Assets and $376 million from Treasury and Corporate, with Data Centers still negligible. Investors are buying a scaling digital asset platform with significant crypto and equity holdings, and essentially a call option on AI infrastructure. Earnings will still swing with asset prices and volumes, but the fact that Q3 2025 nearly matches full year 2024’s net income underlines Galaxy’s earnings leverage to a growing digital asset market.

Galaxy has three key segments. 

• About 40% of equity capital sits in Digital Assets, which encompasses Global Markets and Asset Management & Infrastructure Solutions. Global Markets drives most of the earnings here, with its sell-side trading desk (spot and derivative OTC, lending, structured products), coupled with the investment banking arm, adding M&A advisory and equity and debt capital markets fees. Asset Management & Infrastructure Solutions earns fee income from active and passive investment products, crypto services, and staking and custody solutions that offer clients customized exposure and stronger security. 
• 35% of equity capital sits in Treasury and Corporate, which manages Galaxy’s own portfolio of digital assets and strategic equity stakes, so Q3’s profit reflects mark to market gains of those holdings. 
• The remaining 25% is tied to Data Centers, mainly the Helios build in Texas, which is effectively pre-revenue today but is expected to generate contracted rent from 2026 with CoreWeave its anchor tenant. Phase I targets delivery of 133 MW of contracted critical IT load by 1H26, with capacity rising to 526 MW when Phase III is completed in 2028.

GalaxyOne is Galaxy’s consumer platform for US individual investors, bundling high yield cash, premium yield notes, and simple-crypto and US-equity trading in one app. If it scales, it can grow fee and spread income on client balances, provide cheaper and stickier funding for the trading and lending book, and create a direct funnel into Galaxy asset management and staking products. In big picture terms, it is a way for Galaxy to capture more of the economics of retail flows instead of relying only on institutional clients.

Galaxy is also putting its Class A common shares onchain on Solana in partnership with Superstate, creating fully SEC registered tokenized stock that trades and settles on a blockchain. That is less about near-term earnings and more about proving out tokenized capital markets, giving them a live case study to sell to issuers, funds and banks who want to bring other securities onchain. Supply of onchain GLXY can be tracked with this Dune dashboard. 

Galaxy is still a high beta way to express a bullish crypto view, with trading and principal investing a big swing factor, but it offers a cleaner way to play the broader adoption theme than a single coin. There is regulatory risk with the evolving political environment, meaningful execution risk around Helios delivering its planned AI leasing economics, and GalaxyOne gaining real traction in a competitive consumer market.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters: