1. Background overview of Mantle 1.1 Project introduction

Overview

The public chain track has always been the mainstay of Web3 battlefield. Since the birth of Ethereum, there have been many challengers. On the basis of Ethereum, the L2 route dispute emerged, until today's era of L2's contention among a hundred schools of thought. We can gradually see that technological innovation and high performance alone are not enough. A public chain is like a digital kingdom. It needs a sufficiently prosperous ecosystem and the consensus of a large number of developers and users to continuously obtain " tax".

Mantle is a dark horse that has broken out in this fiercely competitive track. Since the launch of the mainnet in July 2023, in just over a year today, it has become the fourth L2 in TVL, and with a huge treasury support of US$2.6 billion, it has become the leading L2. , and has the momentum to become a first-line public chain. So, how did Mantle get to where it is today step by step, and what greater development will it have in the future? We will discuss this in more depth in this article.

Important development nodes

1.2 Token Economics

$MNT token is the governance token and utility token in the Mantle ecosystem, with a total supply of 6.219 billion. As a governance token, each $MNT has voting rights in the Mantle governance process. As a utility token, $MNT can be used to pay gas fees for the Mantle network and is the main asset for Mantle rewards. This is actually a major difference between Mantle and other L2s. It consumes $MNT as gas fee, which is conducive to the increase in the value of $MNT.

According to the official initial allocation snapshot of $MNT provided on 2023-07-07, the distribution of $MNT is as follows:

Source: Mantle

From distribution As can be seen from the figure, Mantle Treasury holds nearly half of the $MNT tokens, this part is "uncirculated". The distribution of Mantle Treasury’s $MNT tokens is subject to the Mantle governance process, with strict procedures followed for the budgeting, fund raising and distribution process. After the initial distribution, the sources of $MNT in the Mantle Treasury include irregular donations from third parties and Mantle’s mainnet gas fee income.

The Mantle core budget is the primary expenditure of $MNT and is used to pay and reward the following: labor, general and administrative expenses, marketing, ecosystem and builders planning and infrastructure and security.

In MIP-31, which was just passed in September 2024, Mantle made plans for its second budget cycle (12 months from July 2024 to June 2025). During the month), new planning was carried out, among which the most important expenditures were: R&D and growth ($15 million USDx and $20 million $MNT), marketing ($12 million $USDx and 20 million $MNT). In fact, Mantle has partnered with various marketing agencies and research entities, and has been covered by prominent media and research agencies, including Bankless, Unchained Podcast, Delphi Digital, Messari, and more, as well as influential thought leaders.

Mantle’s budget composition, source: Mantle p>1.3 Data Overview

Project-related data

Let us now compare the past year through multiple sets of data Mantle's growth builds concrete perceptions. We know that Mantle will be launched on the mainnet on July 17, 2023. It can be seen that after a period of stability, explosive growth will occur in early 2024.

In terms of TVL, Mantle’s on-chain TVL just exceeded US$400 million in early February this year, and then began to grow rapidly, reaching nearly US$1.5 billion in April 2024. peak, with an increase of over 300% in 4 months. As of publication, Mantle’s latest on-chain TVL numberIt is said to be $1.38 billion, ranking fourth among L2. As a basic indicator for evaluating L2 development, TVL largely reflects the value information of user participation, market confidence and ecosystem health. Rapidly growing TVL often represents user trust and acceptance, and is also the reason why Mantle can provide stronger liquidity. One of the proofs of sex.

Mantle’s TVL, source: l2beat, 2024/10/31< /em>

From the perspective of In-dApps TVL, you can have a more intuitive observation of its ecological composition in the DeFiLlama data dashboard. It is not difficult to find that the core sources are DeFi fields such as Dex, lending, and restaking, and the rapid growth of Dex TVL accounts for a high proportion. This also shows that DeFi is Mantle’s focus.

TVL of Mantle ecological project, source: DeFillama, 2024/10/ 24

After reading the fundamentals of TVL, let’s take a look at Mantle’s on-chain activity. More and more L2s are born, just like highways that have been built with a lot of time and effort, but because there is no demand, there are very few cars driving on the highways. This is a common problem faced by most L2s: there is no high-quality application. Therefore, it is more realistic to measure the prosperity of L2 through data such as user volume and transaction volume, and we have also seen the excellent user activity demonstrated by Mantle's growth data.

Judging from the total number of users, the number of Mantle users in December 2023 was approximately 330,000, and as of October 15, 2024, the total number of Mantle users It has exceeded 4.42 million, a 13-fold increase in less than a year, indicating that more and more users are entering the Mantle ecosystem.

Mantle’s user data, source: Dune, 2024/10/24

From the perspective of daily active users, Mantle's monthly active users increased significantly at the end of April 2024, and have maintained a higher average level since then. The current monthly active users are around 40,000 , an increase of nearly 3 times compared to the level around September 2023 more than a year ago.

Mantle Daily active data, source: Dune, 2024/10/24

In addition, from the perspective of transaction volume, as of October 23, 2024, Mantle The total transaction volume on the chain has exceeded 150 million, with the daily transaction peak exceeding 220 Thousands of transactions show strong on-chain activity, and the more active the on-chain transactions, the higher the network transaction fee income, which to a large extent represents the stronger self-generating ability of the network.

Mantle’s transaction data, source: Dune, 2024/10/24

Social media related data

As of October 24, 20234, Mantle has accumulated more than 800,000 fans on Project update. Currently, Mantle’s Discord community has attracted nearly 440,000 members, with more than 10,000 people online every day. people, becoming one of the most popular channels. At the same time, Twitter updates are highly interactive.

In addition, Mantle has been active on official social media channels and ecosystem channels. More than 120 AMAs were conducted, hosted by KOLs and project team members, including Mantle Ecowaves, Mantle Showcase Radio and other series of activities, which have played an important role in driving user participation and adoption. They can also be seen around the world. Mantle's presence has been held for 50 years now Multiple offline activities

1.4 Technical Architecture Principles

L2 Rollup MainIt is divided into two types: OP (optimistic rollup) and ZK (zero-knowledge proof rollup). Mantle Network implements L2 expansion solutions based on OP Rollup, and at the same time develops its own DA layer of modular components.

Modular design significantly reduces transaction costs

When we discuss modular blockchain , you must first understand the concept of Monolithic Blockchain. Taking Ethereum as an example, a mature single blockchain can generally be roughly divided into four structures: execution layer (Execution Layer), settlement layer (Settlement Layer), data availability layer/DA layer (Data Availability Layer) ), Consensus Layer, each layer has its own unique functions and functions. Simply put, Mantle's modular design handles the four key functions of the blockchain at different levels, rather than completing them on one network layer like most single blockchains. These four functions are:

Transaction execution: performed on Mantle's EVM-compatible execution settlement layer, Mantle's sequencer generates areas on the L2 execution layer block and submit the state root data to the main blockchain.

Consensus and settlement: Responsible for the Ethereum L1 network.

Data availability: The data availability layer is independently developed based on Eigen DA, allowing Mantle to submit only the necessary state roots to the Ethereum mainnet for storage that would normally be Callback data broadcast to L1.

Data acquisition: Other nodes obtain transaction data from Mantle DA through the DTL service, and verify and confirm it.

In the current blockchain architecture, OP Rollup needs to submit all transaction data to the data availability layer of Ethereum at a high Calldata fee. As transaction volume increases, this fee reaches 80-95% of the total fee, severely restricting the cost efficiency of Rollups. Mantle Network has successfully reduced operating costs through an independently developed modular data availability layer. also,The modular design makes it easier to plug in new technologies.

Decentralized sorter eliminates the risk of centralization

The sorter is an L2 solution The core role responsible for collecting and ordering transactions, calculating state, and generating blocks is critical to the security of the network. In traditional rollup schemes, the orderer is usually a single centralized node that is susceptible to failure, manipulation, or censorship. Mantle replaces centralized sorters with a permissionless cluster of sorters, bringing the following benefits:

Improving network availability and eliminating single points The risk of failure ensures the continued operation of the network.

Improves the reliability of the network's consensus, prevents manipulation or review by the sorter, and ensures fairness and transparency in transactions.

Improves the incentive compatibility of the network, drives the compliance behavior of the sequencer through the reward mechanism, and ensures the long-term sustainability of the network. In contrast, centralized sorters face a public goods dilemma.

1.5 Competitive Landscape

The background of Ethereum’s congestion creates the grandest narrative. In the article "The Three Transitions", V God proposed three main technical transitions that Ethereum needs to go through: the transition to L2 expansion, everyone turns to Rollup; the transition to wallet security, everyone uses smart contract wallets; the transition to privacy, Ensuring privacy-preserving funds transfers are possible. Buterin believes that without the development of L2, Ethereum will fail due to high transaction costs.

It is against this background that the current L2 track is booming. According to L2Beat, there are 110 L2 or L3 scaling solutions in operation on the market, however, only a handful of L2s have gained mainstream acceptance and generated significant TVL and users. As of October 24, 2024, the TVL of L2 extension solutions has reached US$37.62 billion, which has tripled compared with a year ago, showing strong development momentum and user demand.

Source: l2beat, 2024/10/25< /p>

Comparison between Mantle and mainstream L2

From the perspective of TVL, the top three are Arbitrum, Base and Optimism. The top three L2 already accounts for more than 73% of the market share, while Mantle caught up and became the fourth largest Layer2 one year after its launch.

L2’s TVL ranking, source: L2beat, 2024/10/31

From the FDV point of view, Mantle ranks at 35.8 Billion dollars is second only to Optimism and Arbitrum. From the perspective of MC/FDV, Mantle ranks first with 54.1%. This number proves that MNT. Will face less selling pressure in the future

Source: Coinmarketcap, 2024/10/26, compiled by Klein Labs

In terms of revenue and profit, Base has surpassed Abitrum since March this year to become the most profitable L2 ,Mantle

Source: Dune, 2024/10/26

Comparison of Mantle and the public chain of transaction background

Mantle’s early backers include the third largest exchange Bybit, this also gives it a unique advantage. In this section, we will also look at some other exchange-backed L2s for comparative analysis.

When it comes to public chains supported by exchanges, we all know that Binance incubated the BNB and opBNB chains, Coinbase incubated Base, and OKXSupported X Layer etc. And just on October 24, the exchange Kraken has just announced plans to launch its L2 network Ink, which is expected to be launched on the mainnet in early 2025.

Before introducing these L2s, let’s take a look at the major exchanges behind them. According to Coinmarketcap’s rankings, Binance, Coinbase, and Bybit are the top three crypto exchanges, with OKX and Kraken ranking 4th and 6th respectively. This also means that 5 of the top 6 exchanges have supported at least one public chain. This is also an important strategic choice for exchanges.

The exchange's entry into the public chain field is not only an expansion of service boundaries, but also an exploration of the shift from "off-chain" to "on-chain". This trend will lead a larger number of users and assets to gradually migrate from off-chain centralized exchanges (CEX) to on-chain (decentralized finance, DeFi) platforms, making the trading ecosystem move towards decentralization. Public chains and exchanges have something in common in nature. They both require new assets to be issued and traded on them to generate income. The exchange's rich asset operation experience and high-quality industry resources are also one of the competitive advantages of this type of public chain.

1.5.2.1 BNB Chain

BNB Chain (formerly Binance Chain) in 2019 create. At that time, BNB, a utility token launched in 2017, migrated from the Ethereum network to BNB Chain. BNB Chain was renamed from BSC. Although it is L1, we also briefly introduce it here due to its strong Binance background.

BNB Chain’s current TVL reaches $4.7 billion. BNB Chain leveraged Binance's exchange background and financial support to successfully build DeFi into a strong field, the most famous of which is Pankecswap.

Binance’s financial and technical support are undoubtedly important advantages of BNB Chain, but the close relationship with the exchange also raises questions about the degree of decentralization. For example, during the 2022 hack, Binance requested all validators to suspend transactions on BNB Chain in order to quickly control the situation. This centralized operation actually reflects theThe limited number of verification nodes also means that most nodes are directly or indirectly controlled by Binance.

How to gradually realize the independence of on-chain governance while rationally utilizing the resources of the exchange behind it, and truly implement the decentralized Web3 concept, is actually the exchange This type of public chain incubation will face key issues.

In addition, BNB Chain also launched opBNB, an EVM-compatible L2 scalability solution based on OP Stack, in Q2 2023. According to DeFiLlama data, opBNB’s current TVL is $21.6M and is still in the early stages of development.

1.5.2.2 Base

Base is the Ethereum L2 public chain incubated by Coinbase. Since Coinbase is subject to SEC supervision, it is difficult for Base itself to issue tokens, which means that it lacks a natural token economic incentive advantage compared to other L2s.

Despite this, Base has made remarkable achievements within a year after its launch. Its TVL experienced two explosive growth in April and September this year. , currently exceeding US$2.4 billion. We also see innovations like Friendtech on Base.

Base’s top five projects with TVL contributions are all from the DeFi field. It is worth noting that the number one Aerodrome Finance contributed nearly 54% of Base’s TVL with $1.3 billion. Launched on Base on August 28, 2023, Aerodrome is an automated market maker (AMM)-based DEX.

1.5.2.3 Cronos zkEVM

Cronos is a cryptocurrency exchange launched in November 2021 The blockchain launched by Crypto.com (ranked 13th) is an Ethereum-compatible L1 network, but its TVL has not been significantly improved since its launch. Later, Cronos’ development team CronosLabs and Matter Labs further launched the zk-based L2 network Cronos zkEVM, which was launched on the mainnet in August this year.

Cronos zkEVM’s current TVL is stable at around US$17 million, and its current size is relatively smaller than the previous major chains.

1.5.2.4 X Layer

X Layer is a joint venture between OKX and Polygon Labs in April this year. Jointly launched L2 based on zk rollup. X Layer uses OKB as its native token, which can be paid as gas fees. In subsequent planning, X Layer will also continue a series of technical architecture optimization and scalability improvements, such as sorter decentralization. X Layer’s current TVL is $9.3 million.

From the TVL comparison, Base is relatively ahead, Mantle ranks second, and Cronos zkEVM and X Layer are still on a smaller scale.

Source: DeFiLlama, 2024/10/26< /p>1.6 Preliminary value assessment

Through horizontal comparison with different Layer 2 networks, the ecological prosperity and valuation level of the network can be intuitively judged, so as to better evaluate Layer 2 development potential.

Before making the comparison, we need to note that unlike other L2s that use ETH as Gas tokens, MNT tokens are regarded as the Gas of the Mantle chain. Tokens, this needs to be taken into consideration when comparing to other L2 networks. We mainly calculated the following indicators:

Data comparison, source: Dune, DeFiLlama, compiled by Klein Labs, 2024/10/26

As you can see, it is similar to other OPsCompared to the Rollup track’s Layer 2 network, Mantle’s ecosystem is still in its early stages. However, more than 50% of Mantle's native token MNT is already in circulation, which makes its future selling pressure smaller than other public chains. In addition, Mantle has reached such a high level in hard-core data indicators such as TVL and on-chain revenue in such a short period of time. We have reason to believe that as the Mantle ecosystem continues to improve and prosper, its competition in the L2 track will be better. The status will continue to rise and reach a whole new level.

2. Mantle’s ecosystem

As Vitalik said, the ecosystem of the public chain is its trump card. A rich and diverse ecosystem can not only attract more new users to enter, but also encourage existing users to engage in more frequent and diverse interactions in the ecosystem. Thinking about Mantle's growth from this perspective, although the rotation of the market cycle has indeed had a positive impact on it, what is more important is the help brought by Mantle's continuously enriched ecological territory.

According to the latest data, there are 240+ dApps in the Mantle ecosystem, including 89 DeFi categories, 96 infrastructure categories, and 20 GameFi categories. DeFi and infrastructure account for half of the country, which also reflects the prosperity of DeFi as the infrastructure of the public chain on Mantle.

Source: Mantle, 2024/10/24< /p>

Now we will also analyze some projects in its ecology from these main categories:

2.1 DeFi track

DeFi is the basic disk of a public chain, DeFi Whether the infrastructure is perfect or not will largely affect the potential and upper limit of the entire ecological development. 36 of Mantle’s DeFi projects are DEX, and the rest include lending, re-pledge, etc. Below we will introduce some of these projects:

2.1.1 Agni Finance

Project Introduction : Agni Finance was established in 2023 and is Mantle’s nativeAMM’s DEX is currently the No. 1 TVL project on Mantle ($121 million), with a total trading volume of $3.92 billion. Agni currently provides 6 currencies and 20 trading pairing services, and its most active trading pair is METH/WETH. According to data from CoinGecko, Agni’s latest 24-hour trading volume was $4.36M.

Agni Finance’s TVL has remained stable at a level of more than 100 million US dollars after an explosive growth of doubling in July this year, doubling from Q2 increase.

X: @Agnidex

2.1.2 INIT Capital

Project Introduction: Founded in 2023, INIT Capital is a platform for dApps and users to interact, providing both permissionless access to a unified liquidity pool and efficient revenue management. As a built DeFi liquidity infrastructure, INIT offers a variety of activities, including lending and yield strategies. Init is now available at Mantle & Blast. At the time of writing, INIT Capital has a market size of $110 million, with total lending of more than $24 million.

INIT Capital announced the completion of a $3.1 million seed round of financing at the end of February 2024, led by Electric Capital and Mirana Ventures.

X: @InitCapital_

2.1.3 Merchant Moe

Project Introduction: Merchant Moe is a DEX established in 2024, a product of Trader Joe, designed and built specifically to serve the Mantle ecosystem and community. It will be launched on the mainnet in January 2024, and the $MOE token will also be officially launched. Currently, trading services are available for 14 currencies and 22 trading pairs, with the most active trading pair being METH/USDT.

According to MIP-28, Merchant Moe will receive liquidity support from Mantle Treasury. In addition, Merchant Moe also received seed investment from Mantle EcoFund.

X: @MerchantMoe_xyz

2.1.4 Ondo Finance

Project Introduction: Ondo Finance is a financial protocol focusing on the RWA track. At this stage, its main business is to tokenize high-quality assets such as U.S. Treasury bonds and money market funds within a compliance framework so that they can be put on the blockchain. Users' investment and trading. The TVL of the RWA U.S. debt track where Ondo is located has increased by 6 times in the past year. It is the main driving force of the RWA industry. Ondo Finance's TVL has grown rapidly since April and is currently in the RWA track. TVL Ranking third, it has a certain first-mover advantage and is expected to develop in the future. Ondo Finance currently supports 8 chains, among which TVL ranks third on Mantle, surpassing Aptos, Arbitrum and Sui.

X: @OndoFinance

2.2 Wrapped assets

To be precise, Wrapped Assets belongs to a category of DeFi, but in view of Mantle With the remarkable achievements in this field and the recent continuous efforts and attention, we will analyze this sector separately.

Bybit launched cmETH on October 23. , and plans to launch mETH’s governance token COOK, which will quickly detonate the entire network. Before explaining cmETH and COOK in detail, we need to understand what mETH is.

2.2. 1 mETH

mETH is a permissionless, non-custodial ETH liquidity staking protocol. Users can obtain mETH by staking ETH (1:1). Currently, mETH has 15,025. verification nodes, with more than 480,000 pledgedETH.

As a native LSD protocol launched by Mantle, mETH has achieved rapid growth since its launch on December 4, 2023, with TVL reaching US$1.22 billion in less than a year. It is currently the 4th largest Ethereum LSD product.

Looking back at the background of the birth of mETH, in June 2023, Ethereum has successfully transitioned from PoW to proof-of-stake PoS, and Lido Finance has already relied on a TVL of US$13 billion. It has firmly maintained its leading position in the market, followed closely by competing products such as Rocket Pool (rETH), making competition in the Liquidity Staking (LSD) track extremely fierce. For mETH, which has just had its first round of discussions on the Mantle Governance Forum, it is obvious that it has not gained a first-mover advantage.

However, after sufficient community governance discussions and technical preparations, on December 8, 2023, the ETH liquidity staking protocol for all users was officially launched (at the time Mantle LSP). With its strong performance, mETH quickly emerged in the fierce LSD track and became a "new player" at the time.

According to data from DeFiLlama, Mantle LSP’s TVL exceeded US$100 million within a week of its launch, and has since climbed higher, reaching a peak of nearly US$2.2 billion in March this year. US dollars, TVL is currently stable at more than 1.2 billion US dollars, becoming the fourth largest LSD product on Ethereum. In addition, official data shows that mETH has more than 8,000 wallet users on Ethereum and 26,000 wallet users on the Mantle network. The number of users and activity are also eye-catching.

Source: DeFiLLama, 2024/10/25< /p>

mETH holders can access various DeFi platforms for liquidity pools, yield farming, and other financial activities without unstaking ETH. Here are a few examples of dApps available to users:

For trading, Bybit offers mETH/USDT and mETH/ETH pairs, while NativeX offers mETH/WETH pairs and other exchange options.

In terms of lending, INIT Capital allows deposit/borrow positions using ETH, Timeswap utilizes ETH as collateral, and MYSOFinance offers zero-fee swaps and customized zero-liquidation loans .

In terms of liquidity, Merchant Moe provides various liquidity pools, while Butter.xyz allows adding liquidity to any available token, including ETH and MNT.

This is the unique advantage of mETH: backed by Mantle's rich and mature ecological landscape, it gives mETH more flow scenarios and brings richer benefits. Space and stronger mETH demand, this healthy cycle of benign development model further promotes the continued growth and prosperity of mETH.

2.2.2 cmETH

At the end of May 2024, half a year after mETH was officially released, The MIP-30 governance proposal passed, launching cmETH as a new liquid re-pledge token (LRT). Specifically: mETH is used as a liquidity pledge token, and users pledge ETH to obtain mETH; and cmETH is used as a liquidity re-pledge token, and users can pledge mETH and obtain cmETH at a ratio of 1:1.

Like mETH, cmETH will be highly composable in the Mantle ecosystem (including EigenLayer, Symbiotic, Karak, Zircuit, etc.), allowing users to maintain the advantages of mETH. At the same time, explore more revenue opportunities through L2 and decentralized applications and protocols. Compared with mETH, the core advantage of cmETH is that in addition to the basic staking income, it also covers more income opportunities, including major re-staking point income (airdrop expectations), re-staking AVS income, etc.

In short, cmETH is a higher risk-return option compared to mETH, and is more suitable for user groups who want to try to obtain higher returns within a certain risk range. . In addition, while the MIP-30 governance proposal launches cmETH, it also foreseesannounced the issuance of $COOK as an mETH governance token.

Here we mention in passing Mantle’s massive first-season Methamorphosis event starting in July 2024: During this 100-day event, mETH Once again taking advantage of its ecological advantages, it directly announced 23 partners, including well-known projects such as EigenLayer, Symbiotic, Karak, Zircuit, and Pendle. Users holding mETH can receive rewards by participating in interactive tasks and completing tasks. Power can be exchanged for COOK tokens in the future.

Source: Mantle

Although the first season has ended, on October 23, mETH announced that the second season of Methamorphosis will soon be launched. There is no doubt that the Mantle ecosystem will usher in another wave of explosive growth. .

2.2.3 FBTC

Mantle’s Wrapped Assets are not limited to ETH. In its ecosystem, FBTC, launched in conjunction with Antalpha and others, represents another important form of liquid asset. Introducing BTC into the Ethereum ecosystem, WBTC has been relatively successful before, but it sometimes fell into a crisis of trust. At this time, FBTC will be a better choice.

FBTC is a full-chain Bitcoin asset, pegged to BTC at a 1:1 ratio, and provides cross-chain bridging and transaction functions on the Ethereum and Mantle networks. This improves Bitcoin’s accessibility and utility. By introducing FBTC, Mantle not only enriches the types of liquid assets on the chain, but also creates new options for cross-chain transactions for users, optimizing the overall user experience.

FBTC, mETH and other products together form Mantle’s multi-dimensional layout in the field of liquidity and cross-chain, helping to build the DeFi revenue ecosystem on its chain. Thanks to the support of the Mantle ecosystem, this multi-chain asset layout will promote it to become a strong competitor in the field of Layer 2 and cross-chain liquidity.

2.3 Game

The position of head of Mantle’s ecological game sector is held by Grant Zhang. Zhang has an extensive resume in the gaming industry, having led publishing teams for games such as League of Legends and Game of Thrones, and has worked on game projects that have been downloaded more than 500 million times.

In terms of the layout of the game section, Mantle's strategy is completely different from most other ecosystems. This difference is mainly reflected in Mantle's team. In other ecosystems, the development of the game sector is usually led by outstanding investors, while Mantle’s game team is composed more of publishing and operation experts in the game industry. As a result, Mantle is able to provide more substantial support to its game partners, including tokenization design, economic models, game distribution, financing and user acquisition.

Also, although Mantle has the largest vault in the Web3 space, it is still very cautious when choosing the games it supports. Unlike other ecosystems that may try to "cast a wide net" to introduce hundreds of games into the ecosystem, the Mantle ecosystem actually only selects about 7-8 games to establish in-depth cooperation and provide real support. It is precisely because of this that the funding and support these games are selected for cooperation are much more significant.

Here we select some core game projects to introduce:

2.2.1 Catizen< /p>

Catizen is a cat-themed game mini program built on the Telegram applet. Players can raise cats and get rewards by sliding. According to a tweet posted by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, Catizen has more than 26 million players as of July 30, 2024, which is just over 4 months after its launch on March 19, 2024.

Catizen example, source: Catizen

In April 2024, Catizen and Mantle establishedstrategic cooperation. But Mantle's partnership with Catizen and its publisher Pluto Studio actually dates back to August 2023. Whether it is from game design, token economics, user acquisition, or even cooperation with TON, Mantle provides all-round support. The reason why Catizen chose Mantle to cooperate is as mentioned above. Mantle's unique team structure can provide professional and practical support for game projects. This support can effectively promote the success of the project, which is something other ecosystems cannot do.

For Mantle, hyper-casual games like Catizen and Tap to Earn are just the beginning. Such games are very suitable for attracting users and can integrate the massive Telegram User groups are introduced into mini-games. In the future, Mantle’s plan is to develop together with the Telegram mini-game ecosystem and continue to release more suitable game products at every stage of evolution.

As of press time, Catizen has more than 600,000 users on the Mantle blockchain. CATI topped Mantle's Natively Minted Value list at $76.63 million.

X: @CatizenAI

2.2.2 MetaCene

MetaCene is a huge multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that incorporates Web3 elements. It combines NFTs, blockchain mechanics, and AI technology with classic game mechanics like PvP campaigns and land management. MetaCene was founded by Qunzhao (Alan) Tan, an experienced game company developer.

As a large-scale MMORPG game, MetaCene has more complex requirements in cost, rules and economic model design. Mantle has teams such as Game7, Hyperplay, Yeeha and Community Gaming. These teams can provide comprehensive support in terms of user acquisition, participation, wallet infrastructure, entrance, security, etc., and can provide more practical support for MetaCene.

It is worth mentioning that the founder of the number one alliance of professional chain game guilds said after experiencing Metacene in depth that MetaCene’s game depth design is reasonable and the player composition is international, which also proves the playability of the game. .

As of press time, there are more than 510,000 users on Metacene, and the number of daily active users once exceeded 360,000.

;">X: @MetaCeneGame

2.2.3 Funton.ai

Funton.ai is new in October this year Join the Mantle ecosystem. As the leading modular multi-game platform in the TON ecosystem, Funton.ai is committed to building a decentralized GameFi ecosystem that combines artificial intelligence and games, and provides one-click game generation services. year 7 In September, its monthly active users exceeded 350,000. The cooperation with Mantle will help attract hundreds of millions of Telegram users into the Mantle ecosystem. Funton.ai has also customized Flappy MNT for Mantle, just connect to the wallet containing $MNT. Earn $MNT + FUN Points by playing games

It is worth mentioning that Funton.ai has recently partnered with Gate Exchange and OKX Wallet. Cooperating with multiple organizations, it conducted an airdrop of its token $FUN, which further expanded its influence and user base in the market. At the same time, Funton.ai also entered the acceleration camp of Web3Labs and KuCoin Labs, further gaining ground. Recognized by mainstream Web3 organizations

X: @funton_ai

3.4 Other ecological related

Mantle. We have always put a lot of effort into the development of ecological support, which is also an example for various public chains. The following is some information related to ecological support and activities:

2.4.1 EcoFund

Mantle EcoFund is aThe ecosystem fund of up to US$200 million provided by ntle Treasury aims to promote the adoption of developers and dApps on the Mantle network, prioritize investment in teams building high-quality and innovative projects within the Mantle ecosystem, and increase investment in potential investments when appropriate. investment in outstanding projects.

According to the official website, EcoFund has funded more than 13 projects, among which many projects such as INIT Capital, Catizen, and Merchant Moe have grown into the backbone of the Mantle ecosystem. .

2.4.2 Mantle Grants

In order to further promote the vitality of the ecosystem, Mantle has created two Incentive Program:

Mantle Scouts Program. Launched in April 2024, 16 industry leaders are authorized to issue $1 million in MNT token funding to high-quality projects within the ecosystem to support innovative projects. The program provides mentorship, networking resources, and financial support to accelerate project success within the Mantle ecosystem.

Funded by Public Grants. Mantle provides grants (worth up to $20,000 in MNT) to early-stage projects to foster a vibrant developer community.

2.4.3 Game 7

Games are the ecological development direction that Mantle focuses on. It also cooperated with Game7 to launch a game accelerator program. Based on the Mantle Network infrastructure, Game7 provides key tools for game developers, such as NFT market, cross-chain bridge, and game DAO. etc., to provide high-quality user experience and ecological interconnection for the game projects it incubates and invests. The two will be committed to promoting the development of a permissionless and interoperable game world.

2.4.4 Sozu Haus

In terms of developer activities, Mantle is globally Sponsored and hosted 26 hackathons, as well as numerous technologyWorkshops and online AMA sessions. Over 900 hackathon projects were submitted. Mantle also organizes six exclusive Sozu Haus events (Mantle’s mini-accelerator and maker house program) alongside large global crypto events to attract top founders and developers.

2.4.5 Other ecological partners

Outside of its own huge ecosystem, Mantle is also actively cooperating with other partners in the industry. These partners not only support the expansion of the Mantle ecosystem, but also provide it with technology and liquidity in areas such as capital support, user traffic, development resources, market trust and industry endorsement, and developer education. resource.

For example, Mirana Ventures continues to provide financial and resource support for the Mantle ecosystem. Mirana Ventures was also named to RootDada’s Top 100 Investment Firms for 2023. Its fund management scale reaches tens of millions of US dollars, and it has established and incubated multiple projects. Representative investment projects include: TON, Morpho, Zircuit, Story Protocol, etc. Additionally, Mantle is Eigenlayer’s only technology partner.

In terms of the developer community, Moledao is also an ecological supporter of Mantle. Moledao is committed to providing resource docking and support for early Web3 projects and developers. Through a series of Web3 public welfare courses, hackathons and other offline activities, Moledao helped Mantle contact and attract many outstanding blockchain projects and developers. As a developer community, Moledao continues to provide technical innovation support and talent reserves for Mantle, helping it quickly build and improve the blockchain ecosystem.

2.4.6 Ecological Incentives

Mantle’s huge treasury (nearly US$3 billion, global Second) is Mantle's biggest source of confidence. The PoS interest income of the vault can be directly fed back to users, for example, the restaking income through EigenLayer can be used as ecological rewards. This reward mechanism truly increases users’ motivation to participate in the ecosystem. Through ecological interaction or staking, users can not only support ecological development, but also receiveThe share of Treasury revenue makes the entire ecosystem more dynamic.

3. Summary of highlights

Over the past year or so, Mantle has demonstrated its strong competitiveness in the L2 track through eye-catching growth data, and for For current users, with the in-depth integration of the ecosystem and the arrival of cmETH and COOK, Mantle will continue to grow strongly in the future. Faced with this foreseeable growth, we mainly have the following views:

Bybit’s strong endorsement: Based on the close relationship between Mantle and Bybit, the excellence in the Mantle ecosystem Projects will have the opportunity to be listed on Bybit and be discovered by more investors through Bybit's recommendations. This is an extremely attractive resource and exposure for dApps development teams.

The world's largest treasury support: Mantle Treasury of nearly US$3 billion is a strong backing for projects built on the Mantle Network and is also the largest source of confidence for its ecological development. . Mantle is building a more rewarding financial and consumer on-chain application center. For example, the interest income generated through the vault can create additional subsidies and feedback to users.

Advantages of technical architecture: Mantle's modular design provides significant scalability and cost optimization advantages, and also makes Mantle more flexible and open to innovation.

The fourth largest Ethereum LSD product: Mantle’s top four TVL contributions all come from the DeFi field. It is crucial to achieve the ideal liquidity integration of DeFi. The Mantle ecosystem is committed to solving the problem of liquidity fragmentation and betting heavily on the field of liquidity staking. Relying on advanced underlying design and strong ecological empowerment, mETH has grown into the fourth largest Ethereum LSD product in a short period of time.

Thriving game ecosystem: Up to now, the game sector in the Mantle ecosystem has launched 7 flagship products, among which projects such as Catizen and MetaCene are in their respective segments. outstanding performance. Mantle plans to gradually release all game products in the coming quarters to drive further growth of the ecosystem.

Full support for developers and founders: the Web3 industry needs moreFor innovation and encryption application cases, Mantle has implemented a variety of developer incentive programs, such as Sozu Haus’ Hacker House program, and the EcoFund that provides US$200 million to actively discover and support top developer talents. For talented, creative and passionate developers, Mantle is an ideal growth platform.

As a Layer 2 project that is both cost-effective and in line with future trends, Mantle has the potential to lead the development of on-chain transactions and applications, providing a platform for DeFi and decentralization. Chemical applications provide an ideal ecological environment. We should not only pay attention to Mantle's potential as Layer 2, but also compare Mantle in the entire public chain track. Its performance, ecology, TVL, etc. have exceeded most Layer 1. Considering its short growth history, funding With strong treasury support and its good performance of "doing the right things", we have every reason to look forward to the surprises Mantle will bring to the web3 world.

Maybe the next paradigm level innovation will happen in Mantle?