Some Monad community members are growing their audiences like crazy. The opportunity is there for those with a vision

Insightful @a16z episode on America’s energy problem Highlights • The need for employee retention for manufacturing and operating nuclear plants • Diving into the different energy types: solar and its strength, nuclear and the misunderstandings around it, wind and its downsides • The future of energy consumption, and the policies or advancements to help navigate the cyclical nature of energy demand (through the day, seasons) Episode ends with insights on future opportunities • AI software to manage the demand for energy • Decentralized coordination of energy resources A particularly interesting point was how weather could be a critical factor in the coordination systems Some projects building within the decentralized data collection space includes • @nubilanetwork • @SkyX_Network • @WeatherXM

What did you get done this week?

You can tell a lot about someone by their character choice in Smash

this is where I post from

a question I like to ask founders is 'what is the best feature / distribution method you've seen from your competitor' asking about the feature helps me to see if they understand what the user flow is, and what will attract users over to their platform asking about the distribution is about creativity in onboarding users, essentially how do they increase the vol surface for UA

the future of finance will not be trusted central servers

What did you get done this week?

Welcome @rajparekh_ to the Monad Foundation team! Raj brings exceptional product leadership in the payments and stablecoin space, and genuine passion for the crypto industry. He joins us with the goal of massively growing Payments and Stablecoins on Monad. Raj has been putting in the work to grow adoption of blockchain since 2019, when he was the founding product manager of Visa’s crypto team. After leading Visa’s global crypto product and helping the team there to make foundational investments in integrating crypto, Raj co-founded Portal in 2021 with David Scrobonia, Parsa Attari, and Rami Shahatit. Their vision was to massively increase crypto adoption by enabling any company to quickly add crypto wallets to any app. Over the past four years, the Portal team has built a super powerful SDK and MPC wallet product that makes it super easy for companies to give their users crypto wallets. Portal’s SDKs power companies like Bitso (#1 exchange in LatAm), Velo (digital dollar accounts in Brazil), Takenos (platform for LatAm-based freelancers & contractors), Rally (social trading platform, acq by OpenSea), Slingshot (acq MagicEden), Rain Cards (leading stablecoin-backed debit card), and many more. The Portal team's story mirrors the Monad story - building tools that change the game for adoption - just starting at a different part of the stack. Their tools and their skills are truly complementary. I feel super blessed to get the chance to work closely with Raj and the team. There's so much to do, and we're just getting started! On behalf of the Monad Community, welcome Raj!

Putting electricity in every house brought society into the modern era. Putting stablecoins into every company will have a similarly massive impact. Today, I am excited to announce that the Monad Foundation has acquired @portal_hq, a leading stablecoin infrastructure provider. Portal powers millions of dollars of daily stablecoin settlement through its powerful SDKs that make it super easy for web2 companies to add stablecoins to any app. Portal's tools are an incredible accelerant for crypto adoption. We’re excited that they will be doubling down on their mission to put stablecoin capabilities into every company and every app. I am also pleased to welcome @rajparekh_, cofounder/CEO of Portal, to the Foundation as Head of Payments and Stablecoins. Prior to founding Portal, Raj was a founding member of Visa’s global crypto product. He’s been working to grow the adoption of crypto for payments since 2017, and brings exceptional expertise and pragmatism to our team. The combination of Monad and Portal will have a huge impact on accelerating stablecoin adoption. Just as the electric dynamo put electricity in every house, we’ll look to put stablecoins in every business. Here is why Monad and Portal are an awesome match: Stablecoins are poised to transform the global economy: - They make money borderless, breaking down barriers and creating opportunities for workers in developing economies. - They allow businesses to tap into global lending markets and talent pools. - In developing nations, they give the underbanked access to better tools and more stable currencies. - Even for big companies, they offer an array of benefits, including rapid settlement and powerful treasury management tools. Stablecoins will be so transformative in the next few years, but they need technology to fuel their growth. Specifically, they need: - super high processing power and super low fees - the network effects of full EVM compatibility - powerful SDKs that make it easy for non-crypto-native businesses to onboard - and most of all, they need true decentralization – because a borderless economy and a borderless asset ledger won’t run on a centralized server. The combination of Monad and Portal offers a solution to this exact set of needs. Portal represents the missing piece for Monad. Technology; decentralization; community; killer builders; now payments and stablecoins. All in one.