It’s finally happened!From simply writing think pieces about it back in 2021 to seeing it come to fruition this year, Layer 2s have well and truly taken off. No longer do you have to pay $30 in gas to sell $100 of your favorite memecoin. Layer 2s are finally getting that much-needed adoption outside of isolated “SZNs.”
The top names that come to mind when the term L2 is mentioned are Arbitrum, Optimism, and, most recently, Base.
That’s all well and good; they are all great products. But there’s one dark horse that’s been rising up the ranks with their innovative product offerings. An L2 that should be on everyone's radar but is unfortunately overlooked by many.
That L2 is none other than Mantle.
Some background
I’m sure most of you terminally online crypto Twitter frequenters are familiar with Mantle, but for those who aren’t, here’s a bit of background.
Mantle started from BitDAO and ultimately pivoted to Mantle in the first half of 2023.
The idea behind Mantle was simple: to be the most efficient scaling solution on Ethereum. Not too dissimilar from any of the other L2s. And just like some of the most popular layer 2s, Mantle chose optimistic rollups as their preferred technology for scaling.
Of course, simply making another optimistic rollup wouldn’t have changed much for them, given that Arbtirum and Optimism had a clear first-movers advantage. So Mantle used the optimistic rollup model but took it one step further with a little something called modularity.
You’ve probably heard the term modular chains thrown around a lot these past few months. While it may sound like just another buzzword, the hype around modular chains is justified. They may be the most viable option to scale blockchains without sacrificing decentralization.
The current popular iteration of blockchains is what can be referred to as monolithic. They get the job done, but they’re slow, clunky, and expensive to use.
To really get blockchains into the mainstream, we need something faster, sleeker, and cheaper. Modular chains help achieve exactly that. The concept of modularity is essentially dividing up the different elements of a blockchain into separate layers.
So execution, data availability, and settlement happen on separate layers. Keeping them separate rather than all under one roof significantly improves the general blockchain UX.
Mantle took a slightly different approach to other L2s with modularity, and in practice, it looked like this. It used Ethereum for settlement and consensus, while Mantle itself became the execution. They set themselves apart by using the technology from EigenLayer’s EigenDA for data availability.
I know most of y’all know EigenLayer as the restaking protocol that will be giving you a fat airdrop very soon. However, another product offered by EigenLayer is the EigenDA, which is a middleware product that increases the data processing speed by over 200x on Ethereum. The ultimate goal is to be able to process one GB per second.
This EigenDA middleware ultimately makes Ethereum faster and cheaper. By utilizing MantleDA, a version of EigenDA co-developed alongside the EigenLayer team, as the data availability layer, Mantle gets a major advantage when it comes to raw scalability in comparison to other L2s. This advantage will only continue to grow as EigenDA continues to improve its product.
Everything I’ve covered thus far is just the bare bones basics to get you up to speed with what Mantle is about and how it works. But this barely scratches the surface.
The Mantle team has been heads down and hard at work shipping a bunch of different products.
So, in the remainder of this article, we’ll be taking you through some of those products and giving you some alfa on how you can benefit from using Mantle.
Mantle v2: Tectonic Upgrade
True to its name, Mantle v2 is a monumental shift from the prior v1 model.
The v1 model introduced the powerful concept of modularity, but since its inception, the industry has seen many developments, a major one being the release of the OP Stack.
For those who have been living under a rock, or should I say bedrock ;) (I apologize), the OP stack is essentially a collection of software and tools that makes it easy to deploy new secure chains. The current Optimism mainnet and Base chain both use this technology, and the ultimate aim is to make it a Superchain where multiple chains come under this OP stack roof.
A new member of this super chain is none other than Mantle, with its v2 upgrade.
So let's go over some of the crucial differences between v1 & v2 before we give you some of that alfa most of you have been waiting for.
Composability & Interoperability
Using the OP stack means that Mantle is now part of the so-called Optimism Superchain. Being in company with Coinbase is not too shabby, if you ask me. This ecosystem is expected to continue growing, so having seamless interoperability and composability amongst other OP stack chains will prove beneficial in the long run.
EIP 1559 Support
EIP 1559 was introduced to change how Ethereum calculates and processes gas fees to essentially make them more efficient. The initial iteration of Mantle did not support this, but it is now supported on v2 to make the network significantly more cost-effective and efficient.
Removal of redundant components
Using the OP stack infrastructure allowed Mantle to remove redundant things, such as the data transport layer and threshold signature schemes, which were present in v1. Using the OP stack infrastructure reduces a lot of headaches for developers and makes the network lighter in general.
Apart from this, there are also some important differences between Mantle v2 and the OP Stack Bedrock
Independent Data Availability
Rather than using Ethereum for data availability, Mantle is going to stick with their guns and continue to use Mantle DA, powered by EigenDA technology, for data availability to ensure that transaction fees don't become an issue at any point. This strategy is paying off: Mantle Network is the cheapest L2 post-Dencun upgrade.
Native Tokens in L2
A major feature of v2 will be the migration of tokens from the ERC-20 standard. Mantle will have Mantle native tokens for the L2. So, the MNT token, for example, will now be a Mantle native token rather than an ERC-20 token, unlike the other L2s.
Meta Transactions
Meta transactions have been introduced to reduce the onboarding barrier for new users.
The combination of on-chain contracts and off-chain services allows users to pay gas fees on their behalf. A user can specify the sponsor and the percentage of payment to be made, and it will be facilitated on Mantle.
Time to text back your normie friend and get them onoboarded anon. Mantle is calling.
Fee Optimizations
The fee optimization solution is two-fold.
One aspect is adjusting the impact of using MNT for transaction fees. The second aspect is optimizing the gas estimation function to give users the cost of a transaction directly.
So, Why Mantle?
Well, you may be reading this and scratching your head, thinking, Mantle is already super popular. Everyone probably knows all about it. So why are we discussing it?
The reason we are talking about Mantle is not because of what they have done, although that is very impressive in itself, but what is coming up. I’ve already told you that the team is filled with gigachad builders who are shipping some impressive (and potentially lucrative) products for all of us to use.
So let's go over some of that much-anticipated alfa and see how you can benefit from it.
Rewards Station and Airdrops
The Rewards Station is Mantle’s newly unveiled product that is designed to give all MNT holders various rewards and perks from the dApps in the Mantle Ecosystem. That can be airdrops, higher yield, some form of revenue redistribution, and much more. Here's where to check it out.
What better way to kickstart this product than with the protocol currently controlling 15% of ETH’s global open interest.
We’re talking about the almighty Ethena.
For those who don’t know, Ethena is a protocol for creating a decentralized stablecoin called USDe. They are currently in the second phase of their massive airdrop campaign, during which users can perform multiple tasks to earn shards.
The token is currently live, and MNT holders can get themselves in on some of this action.
Holders of MNT that lock their MNT in the Mantle Rewards Station will be eligible for a portion of 2.5 billion Ethena shards, which was worth an estimated $3.5M pre-market before the April 2nd listing.
The warm-up phase for this already ended on March 27th. However, the official lock-in period has already begun and will last until April 26th.
It’s three simple steps to get started:
- Head over to Mantle’s Reward Station
- Connect your wallet and enter the amount of MNT you would like to lock
- Confirm your lock and start accumulating those sweet shards
Lockers of MNT will receive mShards, which are 100% backed by Mantle’s $5.3B treasury. Rewards will accumulate every second, and users can claim these rewards at any time. Once claimed, the mShards can be used to redeem Ethena’s native token ENA.
As most of you may know, the first phase of Ethena’s airdrop has been completed, and they’re straight on to the second one.
Stackin’ sats
In this second campaign, they will be onboarding BTC and using it the same way they have been with ETH, hence, instead of shards, users will now receive sats.
Within this second airdrop phase, Ethena will have a special partnership with Mantle through which users can earn boosted returns.
For starters, there is the Pendle pool on Mantle. Pendle was super popular in the first airdrop phase. The only difference is this time users will have cheaper fees through Mantle.
There is a $400M cap on the pool. Users can earn 20x sats per USDe held in USDe YT or an LP position. On top of this, users can also earn some EigenLayer points. 0.0012 EL per USDe per day. Pretty sweet. Note that there is a cap of 13.8M EL points on offer.
Apart from this, there are many other ways in which Mantle users can get boosted sats rewards. By simply acquiring USDe on Mantle, you get 2x sats and 1x for staking it. By providing liquidity and locking the LP tokens on Merchant Moe, there is an additional 20x sats reward on offer ($10M USDe locked cap).
Then there is INIT. By using the USDe looping hook on INIT, users can get 20x sats per USDe. This is also capped at 20M. Lastly, we have a perpetual swap giant that we love at blocmates named IntentX. By using USDe as collateral on IntentX, users can get up to 20x sats per USDe.
Now, I’m sure most of you are aware of how big Ethena is. So, if this is Mantle’s first Reward Station partnership, just think about what's to come in the future. Mantle is in talks with a bunch of other big protocols to onboard them onto Mantle, and this means a ton of more airdrops and rewards for MNT holders through the Rewards Station.
Mantle has never been so attractive.
To keep up to date with all the upcoming airdrop opportunities from the Rewards Station, we recommend following their X account and turning on notifications. It will be worth your while.
mETH and Beyond
One of Mantle’s other prominent product launches was the Mantle LSP, which is short for liquid staking protocol.
The LSP is a non-custodial liquid staking protocol where users can stake their ETH for mETH. While the general product itself is similar to other liquid staking protocols, the key differentiator for mETH is the superior yield.
mETH shot up to the fourth largest liquid staking token mere months after its December 2023 launch, leapfrogging big names such as Frax Ether and Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH.
Something cool coming up with mETH is the fast-approaching PUFF airdrop. PUFF is a community-made memecoin on Mantle, and those who stake their mETH will be eligible for this airdrop.
That’s as well as 34% of the token’s supply being given in a six-part airdrop as a way to reward mETH holders.
PUFF recently had an NFT mint where $18M in mETH was raised, making it the biggest mint in 2024 thus far. These NFTs can be used to claim PUFF tokens.
Similar to this, you can expect a lot more cool stuff coming to reward mETH holders.
Beyond this remarkable mETH product, Mantle has been doing really well.
MNT was listed on Upbit on March 27, 2024, the biggest spot trading CEX venue after Binance. For a certain amount of time, it was even ahead of BTC for 24-hour trading volume.
Pretty wild.
Concluding thoughts
In short, Mantle are absolutely cooking.
Many people are quick to forget in this industry, and many people may have written of Mantle at one point. Well, this article is just a short primer to wake everyone up to the fact that the team has been firing on all cylinders.
Things for Mantle are just getting started. They’ve only recently started ramping up the product launches and marketing, so expect a lot more to come in the near future.
If you haven’t been paying attention to Mantle, then the time is now before it’s too late. Bridge to the network and start getting active by using the chain and the different products. You will be rewarded appropriately.
Do not fade anon.
