Key highlights:
- Monad set aside up to $60 million to purchase locked tokens from early backers
- Almost all investors said no to the deal
- The tokens would be later unlocked in November 2026
Monad gave some of its earliest investors an opportunity to cash out their locked tokens months ahead of schedule. Nearly all of them said no.
The foundation behind the project said that it had completed a program that offered to buy back locked tokens from early investors at a discount. The team aimed to spend up to $60 million on these purchases. The foundation did not disclose the price offered, how much of the $60 million was spent, or how many investors took part.
Monad Foundation recently completed a liquidity program under which the Foundation offered to buy locked MON from certain early investors in Monad at a discount reflecting the applicable four-year lock-up.
Any MON purchased by the Foundation through the liquidity program remains…— Monad (@monad) August 17, 2026
What the Monad program offered
The buyback was structured as an early exit opportunity for stakeholders. Investors looking to accept a lower price could get cash immediately instead of waiting for the tokens to be tradeable according to the normal schedule. Tokens that were not sold would stay locked on their original timeline. This is to ensure the program does not add new supply to the market early.
Monad is a relatively new blockchain built to run applications compatible with Ethereum. Its token, MON, is used to pay transaction fees and help secure the network. The foundation said the program was implemented to give liquidity to early investors whose plans had changed.
Early investors were allocated close to 19.7 billion MON, which is around a fifth of the token's supply. Those tokens were locked when the network's public version launched last November. It began unlocking after a one-year wait, with monthly releases over four years. This coming November is the first time early investors can sell their holdings in the market.
MON traded around $0.021 on Tuesday, about 15% down from the $0.025 price set in last year's public sale. About 11.82 billion tokens are in circulation, holding a market cap of $250.92 million against a fully diluted value of $2.1 billion.
Meanwhile, activity on the network has grown immensely. Total value locked in decentralized finance apps built on Monad climbed to about $895 million six weeks later, according to data from DeFiLlama. RWA activity on the network is worth about $460.67 million, while its decentralized exchanges handled about $120 million in trading in the past day.
Monad TVL (total value locked). Source: DeFiLlama
That growth does not explain why so few investors accepted the buyback offer. Analysts highlighted that the low uptake cannot be read simply as a vote of confidence in MON's future without knowing how steep a discount was on the table.
A mixed signal for MON price chart
Some analysts see the rejection as a bullish sign. They argued that investors who wanted to sell had an opportunity to do so and mostly passed. This could reduce selling pressure even when the November unlock begins.
Looking at the technical side, MON has consolidated below $0.025 for more than a month. Buyers have been unable to push the price higher, and the token has been forming lower highs, which is typically associated with a weak trend.
There is also a counterpoint to the bullish read. Early investors kept their tokens outside the foundation's control by declining the buyback. This means the full supply overhang is still intact heading into November.
