Monad Faces Community Backlash After Unveiling Tokenomics

Layer 1 blockchain Monad has revealed plans for a public sale of its native token on Coinbase’s new token sale platform, with 7.5% of the total MON supply offered at a $2.5 billion valuation, implying a $187 million raise if fully subscribed.

Alongside the announcement, Monad also unveiled its tokenomics, which have left users and community members fuming. Just 3.3% of the total MON supply will be airdropped, with another 7.5% distributed during the public sale, meaning only 10.8% of the total supply will be available to the average retail user.

Meanwhile, investor, team, and treasury allocations account for more than 50% of the total supply.

While the MON pre-market on Hyperliquid trades at a $6 billion valuation, community members are calling out Monad after the upcoming Layer 1 spent years preaching about how its community would be rewarded during the token generation event (TGE), only to disappoint.

Auri, a longstanding member of the Monad community with one of the exclusive “Mon” roles in the Discord, expressed frustration on X, saying, “I gotta say though this is not ‘community first’ tokenomics. For the first time with Monad, I feel the familiar sour taste of betrayal.”

Investors are voicing concerns as well. One user known as Monkey Rothschild, who invested on behalf of the Wassiverse NFT collection at a $600 million valuation, took to X to unleash a slew of tweets criticizing investors’ vesting compared to the public sale’s 100% unlocks, and the tiny airdrop allocation.

Rothschild said in one post, “3 years, 3%. Not sure how else to spin it, but that’s just dirty work lmfao,” alluding to the fact that many users had been active in the Monad Discord for more than 3 years to receive only a 3.3% airdrop allocation.

It is also worth noting that the airdrop distribution is not exclusive to the Monad community but is shared with general EVM users, whether or not they have ever interacted with Monad.

Despite the broad pushback from community members and onlookers, some market participants welcomed today’s announcements.

“Coinbase sale + full tokenomics have made me more bullish monad tbh,” investor Cryptopathic posted today. He continued in the comments thread, insinuating that the MON token’s low circulating supply and its status as the first-ever Coinbase token sale bode well for its price action.