Monad Rises After Airdrop While Bitcoin and Ethereum Droop

In brief

Monad’s native currency climbed as high as $0.045 on Tuesday.
That mark was notably higher than Monad’s public sale price.
The project’s much-hyped airdrop initially underwhelmed some speculators, but MON has continued rising.

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The price of Monad’s native cryptocurrency rose on Tuesday, following a long-anticipated airdrop that initially underwhelmed a number of speculators.

The token, which can be used to pay for transaction fees or secure the layer-1 network through staking, recently traded hands at $0.042, up 19% from a day before, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko.

MON's recent price marked a 68% increase from its initial price of $0.025 on Monday, which was the token’s going rate during a recently conducted public sale. MON’s price had risen as high as $0.045 earlier on Tuesday.

MON’s rise came as crypto prices continued cooling, falling back into a weekslong pattern, despite green shoots on Monday. Bitcoin erased gains as it fell 1.8% to $87,199. Ethereum also edged down to $2,939, while showing an 0.6% decrease over the previous day.

On Monday, some onlookers expressed surprise that MON’s price had mirrored the public sale, which took place on a platform that Coinbase introduced for fledgling tokens. Others argued that the price action was evidence of a system working as intended.

Monad bills itself as a high-performance blockchain, which solves limitations that other networks face by processing transactions in parallel, such as Solana or Sei.

Despite taking issue with the asset’s low circulating supply—only around 10% of all MON tokens that exist are currently in circulation—BitMEX co-founder and former CEO Arthur Hayes posited that the token could climb to $10, as animal spirits return to the crypto market.

“Just what this bull market needs, another low float, high FDV, useless L1,” he said on X. “But [obviously], I aped. It’s a bull market.”

Airdrops are typically used as a way to reward a crypto project’s early adopters, doling out tokens for free to community members and developers. Oftentimes, a number of recipients sell their airdrop to lock in gains, including an individual who goes NikkiSixx7 on X.

Just what this bull market needs another low float , high FDV useless L1. But obvi I aped. It’s a bull market bitches!$MON to $10 pic.twitter.com/UMSDWWmp5a

— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) November 25, 2025

The individual told Decrypt that they “don’t regret” dumping their MON tokens on Monday at $0.031 apiece, arguing that the network’s team “gave almost nothing to their own communities.”

For NikkiSix7, the airdrop resulted in a $238 payday. The 10,600 MON tokens that the individual received would be worth around $445 today, based on current prices.

Over the past day, Monad had generated $400 million in trading volume on Upbit, the south korean crypto exchange. Meanwhile, $233 million worth of MON had been traded on Coinbase, followed by $160 million on Dubai-based Bybit.