Monad in the Wild: Institutional Insights from Testnet Deployment

As the blockchain infrastructure landscape continues to evolve, high-performance, EVM-compatible Layer 1s like Monad are gaining increasing interest among builders, validators, and institutional stakeholders. Following a successful devnet phase, Monad has now commenced its testnet rollout, selecting a limited group of validators to participate in this early stage of deployment.

Twinstake is pleased to have been among the first wave of validators invited to participate in Testnet-2, and we had our infrastructure fully operational within hours of the network going live. Our engineering team has since maintained flawless performance under early load conditions, leveraging our globally distributed validator operations.

In this article, we present our initial findings, validator performance benchmarks, infrastructure design choices, and a forward-looking institutional readiness framework tailored for new-generation, high-throughput networks like Monad.

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Validator Performance Overview

Twinstake’s validator node, deployed in Amsterdam and integrated with our proprietary infrastructure automation stack, has exhibited the following performance characteristics since the launch of Testnet-2:

• 100% validator uptime: This is vs a tetsnet network average of 98.75%
• 100% block proposal rate
• Sub-second latency across signing and attestation processes
• No slashing or missed blocks due to comprehensive monitoring and auto-remediation protocols

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This performance reflects our commitment to delivering enterprise-grade staking infrastructure, underpinned by our experience operating across 16+ PoS networks, including Ethereum, Cosmos SDK-based chains, Solana, as well as emerging primitives such as EigenLayer and Babylon.

Our engineering team’s focus on proactive monitoring and reliability enables us to avoid disruptions that could impact other participants during the initial testnet and later mainnet phase.

Infrastructure Architecture and Operational Strategy

Monad’s testnet presents non-trivial technical requirements; whilst EVM bytecode-compatible it requires significantly higher compute and I/O throughput than Ethereum. To accommodate these demands, Twinstake’s validator infrastructure includes:

• High-performance, bare metal servers with NVME pcie gen 4-backed storage
• Amsterdam-based datacenter deployment with warm-site strategy in different regions
• Infrastructure-as-code provisioning using Ansible
• Custom monitoring dashboards and alerting systems, integrated into our global NOC workflows

We have applied our knowledge and experience from running other high performance validators to ensure a scalable and robust model of support and infrastructure optimization for Monad. This infrastructure strategy emphasizes resilience, repeatability, and observability, allowing us to scale validator operations reliably across networks with varying architectures (e.g., EVM, Singleton, Tendermint) and to perform better than the network average of 98.75%,

Over the coming weeks, Monad Labs will introduce a suite of test scenarios designed to challenge validator responsiveness, coordination, and fault recovery capabilities. These exercises, while not yet active, represent a unique opportunity to validate institutional-grade infrastructure under real-world stress conditions.

Planned scenarios include:

• Urgent Chain Halt & Critical Upgrade Simulation
• Validators will be required to coordinate in real time to assist with network recovery.
• Scheduled Upgrades and Hard Forks
• Controlled upgrade environments will test operational preparedness and automation.
• Rollback Scenarios
• Participants will simulate chain rollback and state recovery, assessing recovery protocols.
• Load Testing and Randomized Traffic Spikes
• Sustained and spiky transaction volumes will evaluate node capacity and reliability.
• Feature Previews (e.g. v0.10.0)
• The testnet will serve as a staging environment for pre-release features, enabling early validation of protocol changes.

These scenarios will assess both technical capabilities and operational maturity—areas in which Twinstake has demonstrated consistent leadership.

Institutional Readiness Checklist for Monad Participation

Based on our experience supporting early testnets and mainnet deployments across diverse protocol environments, Twinstake looks to ensure that the following are met in order to miniimize risk whilst maximising performance in a dynamic test environment.

• Infrastructure-as-code deployment capability
• High-availability monitoring and alerting systems
• Geographic and network redundancy
• Automated upgrade and rollback tooling
• Signing infrastructure hardened against slashing and latency
• Protocol expertise for effective participation in testnet events
• Global operational support model
• Demonstrated validator performance across comparable networks

Why Institutions Choose Twinstake

Twinstake is purpose-built to meet the demands of financial institutions, custodians, and asset managers exploring digital asset staking. We offer:

• A proven track record operating across 16+ PoS blockchains
• Expertise in high-performance, low-latency infrastructure management
• Advanced monitoring, security, and reporting frameworks
• Support for novel staking primitives (e.g., EigenLayer, Babylon)
• 24/7 global engineering coverage via a follow-the-sun model
• Tailored advisory and integration support

We go beyond validator uptime; we deliver validator performance.

Institutions interested in setting up a Monad staking strategy can reach us via info@twinstake.io to discuss your specific requirements.

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Disclaimer: Twinstake does not provide staking services to retail customers. This briefing note is not intended as a promotion, offer, invitation or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any investment, nor is it intended to give rise to any other legal relations whatsoever and must not be relied upon for the purposes of any investment decision. It does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. If you do not have the relevant professional experience in matters relating to crypto asset investments, you should not consider this briefing note to be directed at you.

This briefing note and the information in it are not directed at, or intended to be made available to, retail customers. It is directed only at persons who are professional investors (for the purposes of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (2011/61/EU) (known as ‘AIFMD’); professional clients or eligible counterparties for the purposes of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Directive 2004/39/EC) (known as ‘MiFID’); if you are in the UK, to “Investment Professionals” or “High Net Worth Companies” as defined in s.19 and s.49 respectively of the Financial Promotions Order, or as otherwise defined under applicable local regulations and at whom this briefing note and the information in it may lawfully be directed in any relevant jurisdiction.

The appearance of any third-party hyperlinks or third-party reference in the briefing note does not constitute an endorsement, guarantee, warranty, or recommendation by Twinstake. Do conduct your own due diligence before deciding to use any third-party services.

Twinstake shall have no liability for any loss or damage that may arise directly or indirectly from the use of or reliance on the information provided herein or for any errors or omissions in the information.

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Disclaimer: Twinstake does not provide staking services to retail customers. This briefing note is not intended as a promotion, offer, invitation or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any investment, nor is it intended to give rise to any other legal relations whatsoever and must not be relied upon for the purposes of any investment decision. It does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. If you do not have the relevant professional experience in matters relating to crypto asset investments, you should not consider this briefing note to be directed at you.

This briefing note and the information in it are not directed at, or intended to be made available to, retail customers. It is directed only at persons who are professional investors (for the purposes of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (2011/61/EU) (known as ‘AIFMD’); professional clients or eligible counterparties for the purposes of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Directive 2004/39/EC) (known as ‘MiFID’); if you are in the UK, to “Investment Professionals” or “High Net Worth Companies” as defined in s.19 and s.49 respectively of the Financial Promotions Order, or as otherwise defined under applicable local regulations and at whom this briefing note and the information in it may lawfully be directed in any relevant jurisdiction.

The appearance of any third-party hyperlinks or third-party reference in the briefing note does not constitute an endorsement, guarantee, warranty, or recommendation by Twinstake. Do conduct your own due diligence before deciding to use any third-party services.

Twinstake shall have no liability for any loss or damage that may arise directly or indirectly from the use of or reliance on the information provided herein or for any errors or omissions in the information.

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