The Protocol: Monad Airdrop + Blockchain Go Live

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, a reporter at CoinDesk.

In this issue:

• Monad Blockchain Goes Live With 100B Token Supply and Airdrop
• Celestia’s TIA Token Rises as ‘Matcha’ Upgrade Preps Network for Cross-Chain Future
• Ethereum’s Fusaka Upgrade Signals New Era for Value Accrual: Fidelity Digital Assets
• World App Starts Virtual Bank Accounts Pilot for USDC Payroll Deposits

Network News

MONAD CHAIN AND AIRDROP GO LIVE: The layer-1 Monad blockchain went live, accompanied by an airdrop of its MON token. The Monad team described the blockchain as a “high-performance network capable of supporting a broad range of growing industry verticals, including DeFi, payments/stablecoins, and emerging institutional use cases for high frequency finance.” Previously, the team said that the blockchain is also “EVM-compatible,” and that the chain is designed to help scale Ethereum’s virtual machine into its next stage of growth. As for the airdrop, according to project documentation, the total supply of MON is 100 billion tokens, with 10.8% currently unlocked and in circulation. That circulating portion is divided between two buckets: 7.5% was made available over the past week through a public sale on Coinbase’s Token Platform at $0.025 per token, and the remaining 3.3% unlocks as part of the airdrop. The remaining supply is allocated as follows: 27% to the Monad team, 19.7% to investors, 4% to the Labs Treasury, and 38.5% toward ecosystem development. Some community members on X expressed frustration with the distribution, arguing that the team’s share is unusually high compared with industry norms.“Monad mainnet’s public launch marks a major step toward making high-performance blockchain infrastructure accessible to everyone. Developers shouldn’t have to choose between speed, security, and usability,” said Keone Hon, the co-founder of Monad, in a press release shared with CoinDesk. “With Monad, we’ve worked to deliver all three, without asking builders to abandon the tools and languages they already know. We’re excited to empower a new wave of applications and bring blockchain technology closer to mainstream and institutional adoption.” — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

CELESTIA ROLLS OUT MATCHA UPGRADE: The project behind the data availability blockchain Celestia rolled out what it calls its biggest software upgrade yet, dubbed Matcha. At its core, this update is designed to boost the network’s capacity and improve token economics. Among the technical changes, it increases the maximum block size to 128 MB (up from 8 MB) and changes how data propagation works, enabling much higher throughput. Simply put, Celestia is preparing itself to handle much more data, which is important if many applications start using it as their underlying “routing” or “data-availability” layer. Beyond throughput, Matcha upgrade also claims to make significant economic and interoperability improvements. The upgrade cuts annual token inflation from ~5% down to ~2.5%. It also removes a “token filter” for cross-chain bridges, meaning non-TIA assets can more easily be moved through or routed by the Celestia layer. This is meant to signal that Celestia wants to become a go-to layer for cross-chain data availability and asset routing. The project’s native token, TIA, is roughly up about 6% over the last 24 hours, trading around $0.65. However, the token is still down 97% from its peak of around $19.70 in December 2024. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

FIDELITY RELEASES FUSAKA REPORT: Fidelity Digital Assets said the Ethereum blockchain’s Fusaka upgrade marks a decisive shift toward a more strategically aligned and economically coherent roadmap. Fusaka, a blend of the names Fulu and Osaka, comprises two simultaneous changes to Ethereum’s consensus and execution layers, and is expected to happen in December. For years, Ethereum’s development path has been shaped by a wide, and sometimes competing, set of stakeholder priorities, Fidelity Digital Assets said in the Thursday report. Fusaka represents a break from that pattern, analyst Max Wadington wrote, consolidating around a narrower set of goals that more directly reinforce scalability, usability and, increasingly, value accrual to ether itself. The analyst framed this moment as a maturation in Ethereum’s governance. A move from loosely coordinated upgrades to a roadmap guided by clearer economic intent. — Will Canny Read more.

WORLD APP STARTS PAYROLL PILOT: World App, the gateway to the Sam Altman-founded blockchain network World, has begun piloting virtual bank accounts in the U.S., giving its users a new way to plug their everyday finances directly into the crypto economy. The feature issues unique virtual account numbers, allowing users to receive direct deposits, like payroll payments, straight into the World App without employers interacting with blockchain rails or worrying about gas fees. Once funds hit their virtual account, they’re automatically converted into USDC. The pilot is commencing in the U.S. for the first phase, with expansion to additional countries coming in future phases. In addition, users can add money from a bank, send USDC internationally, or spend it instantly, all without fees. The company pitches this as a key step toward simplifying on-ramps into crypto-native money. “Virtual bank accounts embody World’s vision of universally inclusive finance,” the team wrote in a press release exclusively shared with CoinDesk. “While traditional banking infrastructure struggles with cross-border complexity, time zones, and fees, World App offers something revolutionary: fast, global, 24/7 finance that just works.” – Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

In Other News

• U.S. Bank, the fifth-largest commercial bank in the U.S., has started testing the issuance of custom stablecoins on the Stellar network. Teaming up with PwC and the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) for the initiative, the bank aims to explore whether a traditional bank can safely issue programmable money on a public blockchain, according to the blog post. U.S. Bank’s digital asset head, Mike Villano, highlighted in the blog post Stellar’s built-in ability to freeze or unwind transactions as a key feature that aligns with regulatory and compliance requirements, such as Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and transaction reversibility, critical features if banks are to adopt blockchain rails for mainstream use. — Kristzian Sandor Read more.
• KR, the cryptocurrency staking company whose shares started trading on the London Stock Exchange, plans to establish itself as the “blue-chip choice” for the industry, offering a range of services rather than simply investing in tokens such as bitcoin and ether. The Isle of Man-based firm is one of a small group of crypto companies listed on the U.K.’s foremost stock exchange. Bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain is set to delist from the LSE next month, and the others are mainly digital-asset treasury companies such as London BTC Co. and Panther Metals (PALM), whose involvement in industry is based on buying and holding cryptocurrencies. Co-founders Keld van Schreven and George McDonaugh said KR1’s move from the the small-cap Aquis Exchange reflects a maturing market and a business model they believe offers more long-term resilience than the pure treasury plays. While KR1 does hold crypto assets, the company’s three-pillar approach — staking income, treasury management and venture investments — is key to its durability, they said in an interview. “Our mission is to be the blue-chip choice for this asset class,” McDonaugh said. “You need a stable base of income to keep the show on the road,” he said, contrasting KR1’s model with companies that rely largely on price swings. — Jamie Crawley Read more.

Regulatory and Policy

• Texas took a step toward building a state-based crypto reserve, grabbing $5 million of BlackRock’s bitcoin exchange-traded fund, officials told CoinDesk, though the state is still setting up its Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The state recently gathered information from the crypto industry on a proper approach to building its bitcoin stockpile, and it passed legislation earlier this year appropriating $10 million to fund it, leaving only a few last steps before it potentially becomes the first of the U.S. states to begin long-term crypto investments in earnest, though others would be expected to soon join it. A few weeks ago, Texas moved past its deadline to “capture the industry’s best practices so it can utilize these practices in the implementation and management” of its bitcoin reserve, according to its formal request for information issued in September. Entities across the industry provided input on how it could set up and manage the stockpile conceived of in the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Investment Act. — Jesse Hamilton Read more.
• The European Central Bank (ECB) released a report warning that stablecoins posed a global financial stability risk because they could draw valuable retail deposits away from eurozone banks. “Significant growth in stablecoins could cause retail deposit outflows, diminishing an important source of funding for banks and leaving them with more volatile funding overall,” the ECB said. Stablecoins’ combined market capitalization has grown to more than $280 billion, driven by increased investor interest and global regulatory progress, and now accounts for about 8% of the total cryptocurrency market. The largest participants, Tether, the company behind USDT, and Circle Internet (CRCL), issuer of USDC, are among the biggest holders of U.S. Treasury bills. “A run on these stablecoins could trigger a fire sale of their reserve assets, which could affect the functioning of U.S. Treasury markets and lead to a broader financial crisis,” according to the report. — Olivier Acuna Read more.

Calendar

• Dec. 11-13: Solana Breakpoint, Abu Dhabi
• Feb. 10-12, 2026: Consensus, Hong Kong
• Feb. 17-21, 2026: EthDenver, Denver
• Mar. 30-Apr. 2, 2026: EthCC, Cannes
• Apr.15-16, 2026: Paris Blockchain Week, Paris
• May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, Miami

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