New blockchain networks that tout ultra-fast, real-time performance are emerging one after another, drawing attention to whether they could lead to a generational shift in the blockchain market.

Layer 1 blockchains such as Solana and Sui, which set out to overcome the scalability limits of Bitcoin and Ethereum, expanded their foothold. Base, led by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, also emerged as a platform leading the Ethereum layer 2 landscape.

More recently, blockchains touting even faster speeds than those platforms have emerged, becoming a variable in the battle for blockchain mainnets.

Monad and MegaETH are representative. Monad, a layer 1 blockchain whose mainnet was unveiled late last year, is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and supports Ethereum developers in porting existing Ethereum apps directly to the Monad network.

It can process about 10,000 transactions per second (TPS). Block creation time is 400 milliseconds and finality is 800 milliseconds. Given that Ethereum mainnet TPS is typically around 30, it is a tremendous speed.

Monad went beyond attracting existing Ethereum apps and also drew many new projects seeking to use high-frequency trading features. According to PAN News late last year, the Monad ecosystem consists of 304 protocols, of which 77 are independently developed. DeFi protocols account for more than 60 percent of the total.

MegaETH, which touts real-time blockchain and recently began operating its mainnet, is not a layer 1 but an Ethereum-based layer 2 network. It is drawing attention by targeting the ability to process more than 100,000 transactions per second, more than 10 times faster than Monad, and a 10-millisecond block time.

In the case of layer 1 blockchains, nodes perform the same work and node operators require similar hardware, while MegaETH uses an Ethereum layer 2 architecture to support the creation of diverse nodes.

According to crypto-focused media outlet Bankless, infrastructure operators within the MegaETH network are divided into 4 roles.

Sequencer nodes are responsible for ordering and executing user transactions and require top-tier hardware. Provers validate blocks using a stateless verification method and also require relatively high hardware. Full nodes re-execute all transactions to validate blocks, and replica nodes receive state changes from the sequencer and update local state.

Bankless reported that the hardware requirements for MegaETH sequencer nodes are significantly higher than those of layer 1 networks such as Solana and Aptos. It added that node specialization protects trustless block validation while enabling sequencer nodes to operate in a high-performance blockchain environment.

Following Monad and MegaETH, LayerZero, known for cross-blockchain, has also recently entered the ultra-fast blockchain race.

LayerZero will unveil its own blockchain mainnet, dubbed Zero, in the second half of the year. For Zero, LayerZero stresses New York Stock Exchange-level transaction processing and stability.

According to the company, Zero applies FAFO, a compute scheduling technology that implements 1,000,000 TPS; OMDB, a high-speed verifiable database that processes 3,000,000 state updates per second; SVID, network technology that supports verifiable data transmission of about 10 GB per second; and a GPU-based ultra-fast zero-knowledge proof system.

LayerZero said it replaced a fragmented, uniform model with an integrated high-performance system that processes multiple applications like concurrent processes on the latest multi-core CPUs. It said that thanks to the resulting massive cost savings, Zero provides not only an alternative to existing blockchains but also a reliable alternative to centralized cloud providers such as AWS.