Monad raises $269M in public token sale from 86,000 participants
In brief
- Monad raised $269 million selling 7.5 billion MON tokens at $0.025 each across 80 countries
- Sale ran November 17–22, 2025, exceeding the $187.5 million initial target
- Coinbase's 'filling from bottom' approach limited whale concentration in the offering
- Mainnet launched two days later; full token unlocks targeted for Q4 2029
Public Sale Exceeds Expectations
The sale ran from November 17 to November 22, 2025, pulling in roughly $269 million from 85,820 participants spread across 80 countries. Monad had initially aimed for $187.5 million, but demand exceeded expectations. The token sale represented a deliberate shift toward broader investor participation rather than concentrated institutional rounds.
Coinbase's platform employed a "filling up from the bottom" approach, applying minimum and maximum bid limits to prevent whale-heavy concentration. This mechanism allowed smaller participants to secure allocations alongside larger buyers, flattening the typical power-law distribution seen in traditional token sales. The structure reflected a growing emphasis on democratizing access to early-stage blockchain projects.
Launch and Unlock Schedule
Monad's mainnet went live two days after the sale closed, on November 24, 2025. At launch, approximately 10.8% of the total supply was unlocked and circulating, a combination of public sale tokens and ecosystem allocations. The remaining token supply sits locked: 27% allocated to the team, 19.7% to investors, and 4% to treasury and Category Labs. Another 38.5% is earmarked for ecosystem development. Full unlocks are targeted for Q4 2029.
Post-Launch Dynamics
By mid-2026, MON was trading consistently below its $0.025 public sale price, fluctuating between $0.023 and $0.027. The price pressure prompted the Monad Foundation to offer repurchasing locked MON tokens from certain early investors at a discount, with a cap of $60 million. Nearly all eligible investors declined the offer. The circulating supply of MON has since grown to approximately 11.8 billion tokens, reflecting scheduled unlocks and ecosystem distributions.
