Monad’s public testnet launch marks its most significant step towards mainnet. At Figment, we are especially excited to see this testnet go live – in addition to Monad being among the most highly anticipated new network launches of 2025, we’ve also had the unique opportunity to collaborate with the Monad team and a select group of validators to prepare the network for public testnet launch over the past few months.
Figment’s Involvement
Since October 2024, Figment has been operating infrastructure for early iterations of Monad including a private, validator-only devnet and, most recently, Monad’s private testnet. Each of these networks has been used to intensively test Monad in the leadup to launch. Over the course of this private phase of Monad’s development, the Monad team and a hand-selected validator set worked together to comprehensively test Monad’s functionality and perform dry runs of a variety of more specific tasks, including hard forks and consensus rollbacks.
These early iterations of Monad served two primary purposes. First, they aimed to stress-test the network to ensure that everything was functioning as expected with a geographically diverse operator set before opening access to the broader public. Given the level of anticipation around Monad’s launch, the degree of participation on public testnet is expected to be especially high. With this in mind, it’s been critical to ensure that the network is as heavily tested as possible before its public release.
The second goal was to build a tightly-knit core validator community, which came as a natural byproduct of the close collaboration between participants. Developing such a community is critically important to the Monad team, who based their validator selection criteria in part based on proven willingness to go above and beyond the baseline expectations of an infrastructure operator (e.g., rapid response and coordination with other validators during historical high-profile network downtime incidents).
Monad and Figment Collaboration
Figment has worked closely with the Monad team prior to these early network iterations to share our recommended best practices for new network launches based on our 6+ years of experience operating Proof-of-Stake infrastructure. We’ve been thrilled to see the Monad team implementing many of these suggestions, and it’s been a privilege to participate in the private testnet alongside a set of excellent node operators.
Looking Forward
Figment is live on Monad’s public testnet and will be live on mainnet on day 1. As a pre-public testnet operator, Figment has extensive experience running validator infrastructure on Monad and is deeply committed to supporting the long-term success of the network and its ecosystem. If you’re interested in staking MON with Figment, connect with our team here.
