Monad rolls out MON airdrop after aggressive sybil purge

MON airdrop goes live as Monad filters out bots and fake on-chain activity, focusing its rewards on a curated list of crypto natives. The foundation said it employed a hybrid of AI analysis and manual review to identify genuine contributors and community stalwarts.

On Oct. 14, the Monad Foundation announced the launch of its long-awaited MON airdrop, marking a major step toward the network’s upcoming public mainnet. The foundation said it distributed tokens to roughly 230,000 participants, including core Monad supporters, DeFi traders, builders, and recognized community members across multiple chains.

Notably, recipients were screened through a combination of machine learning and manual curation designed to root out Sybil attacks.

How Monad defined real crypto users

According to the announcement, the Monad team drew a hard line between repetitive, low-value on-chain activity and the type of sustained engagement that signals genuine conviction. The foundation excluded easily botted behavior, such as small, repetitive transactions, and instead prioritized metrics that required capital, consistency, and community participation.

For on-chain analysis, the Monad Foundation enlisted third-party firm Trusta AI to help scour Ethereum and Solana data for Sybil addresses. The goal was to identify power users who generated significant economic value.

Qualifying metrics were stringent, focusing on high-volume DEX traders on platforms like Hyperliquid, significant depositors into blue-chip DeFi protocols such as Aave and Uniswap, and long-term holders of prestigious NFT collections like CryptoPunks and Mad Lads.

The airdrop was distributed across five distinct tracks. The largest allocation went to the Monad Community itself, identified through exhaustive manual review and community-sourced tools such as the Monad Community Recognizer. Another major track targeted multi-chain on-chain users, rewarding proven DeFi and NFT activity regardless of the underlying blockchain.

Monad cards initiative

A particularly innovative component was the Monad Cards initiative, a social experiment that turned eligibility into a collaborative effort. The project identified active and thoughtful crypto users on X and then empowered them to nominate other deserving individuals, creating a web of peer-based verification that algorithms alone could never replicate.

This extended to various other crypto sub-communities, including notable Farcaster users and members of groups such as LobsterDAO.

The foundation also allocated tokens to those contributing to the ecosystem, including security researchers from SEAL 911, auditors, and participants in educational programs such as RareSkills and SheFi. Finally, a dedicated track for Monad Builders rewarded developers with proven work from hackathons and IRL events, deliberately excluding the foundation’s own full-time team members.

The claim portal for the MON airdrop will remain active until Nov. 3. The Monad Foundation said there is no benefit to claiming early, urging the community to proceed with caution and avoid impostor sites.