On Thursday, October 1st, during Day 2 of the main KBW conference, I was fortunate enough to get the chance to sit down one-on-one with @keoneHD, Co-Founder of Monad, for about two hours. We talked about everything from the broader crypto industry to Monad’s technology, and honestly, even two hours didn’t feel like enough. We were so deep in the conversation, constantly exchanging thoughts and ideas, that I completely lost track of time. There’s a lot I can’t share, but here are some of the key takeaways from our conversation: 1️⃣ Monad is the future of Ethereum. A lot of people may not fully understand this yet, but as time goes on, there will eventually come a point when people realize what Monad is actually building. 2️⃣ Monad is working toward creating the best possible onchain trading environment for both retail and institutional participants. Think MEV resistance, 100ms block times, and more. 3️⃣ Monad is also developing technology similar to what Canton is doing, but building it directly into the chain itself, with a major focus on institutional onboarding. Think privacy on the EVM while maintaining EVM compatibility/equivalence. There was a lot more discussed, but some of it isn’t something I can talk about publicly, so I’ll leave it at that for now. The other major part of our conversation was about narratives. Right now, the Buyback & Burn meta is everywhere. But then look at Zcash. ZEC barely generates any revenue. There’s essentially no buyback mechanism, and there isn’t really a meaningful burn mechanism either. I actually didn’t know this myself. Keone pointed it out during our conversation, and when he did, something immediately clicked for me. It genuinely changed the way I was thinking about this market. So then the obvious question becomes: Why did Zcash — a coin that barely generates revenue — rally so much this season? The answer is that it has something simple and obvious that can convince people to buy it. That was one of the points Keone made, and it really stuck with me. As AI continues to advance, the cost of tracking and analyzing activity onchain has fallen dramatically. As a result, the value proposition of privacy itself has become significantly stronger. Then add the fact that Zcash is PoW and has a maximum supply of only 21 million coins. Suddenly, you get an incredibly simple narrative that almost anyone can understand: $ZEC = $BTC + Privacy And that kind of narrative played a major role in why Zcash was able to attract so much attention and appreciate so dramatically this time around. Whether we’re talking about crypto or equities, narratives matter enormously. They can be incredibly simple, but their impact on how an asset is perceived — and ultimately how it is priced — can be substantial. That was probably one of the biggest things I took away from this conversation. And it seems like Monad is now making a very deliberate effort to establish clear narratives of its own. Keone mentioned that there were several specific requirements coming from enterprises and banks, and that Monad has been working to accommodate those requirements directly at the chain level. I think we’ll start to see a clearer picture of this around Token2049. Monad will have multiple specific narratives: 1️⃣ High-performance, EVM-equivalent L1 Just like Ethereum, but built for significantly higher performance. 2️⃣ Privacy 3️⃣ A base layer for institutions We’ll see soon!