Monad Testnet Adds 15 Validators After Temporary Downtime Due to Consensus Issue

Quick Take:

• At around 13:00 UTC on March 20, the Monad testnet experienced a disruption while adding validator nodes, temporarily halting operations.

• The testnet resumed an hour later, adding 15 new nodes and bringing the total to 72.

At approximately 13:00 UTC on March 20, the Monad testnet encountered an issue while adding new validator nodes, temporarily halting operations. Monad co-founder Keone Hon explained that the downtime occurred because a supermajority consensus was not reached at the epoch boundary. "This epoch was intended to add 15 validators to the active set, but the transition didn’t go quite as expected," Hon explained. Thanks to the efforts of Monad validators, the issue was resolved within an hour. Keone Hon later announced on X that the testnet had resumed operations. Following the recovery, 15 new validator nodes were added, bringing the total number of nodes to 72. Hon further noted, "The team is working on improving the robustness of network upgrade procedures."

An epoch is a defined time unit that governs network operations such as block production, validator rotation, and state updates. During each epoch, validators work together to ensure transactions are processed and recorded accurately. However, if issues arise at the epoch boundary—such as a failure to reach consensus—it can disrupt the network’s normal operations. Monad is a high-performance Layer-1 blockchain built to improve transaction throughput and efficiency with parallel execution (Parallel EVM) and an optimized architecture. It is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing seamless migration of Ethereum smart contracts. Monad aims to process 10,000 transactions per second, matching Solana’s performance while supporting Ethereum-based applications.

On February 19, Monad launched its public testnet after two years of development, providing an experimental environment for developers and users before the mainnet launch. Monad Labs, the team behind the project, was co-founded by ex-Jump Trading developers and has secured $3 billion in funding, led by Paradigm.