What is Manta Pacific An Indepth Analysis of Mantas Soaring TVL

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What is Manta Pacific?
Introduction to Manta Pacific
Development of Manta Pacific in Four Different Phases
(1) Manta Pacific Alpha (Ethereum L2)
(2) Manta Pacific Alpha II (+Celestia DA)
(3) Manta Pacific Beta (+Transition to zkEVM)
(4) Manta Pacific Production Grade Mainnet I (+General Circuit 2.0)
Manta Launches New Paradigm Event
Expected Rewards for New Paradigm
Steps for New Paradigm Event
Manta Ecosystem: StakeStone and Mountain Protocol
(1) StakeStone
(2) Mountain Protocol
Overview of Manta Ecosystem Data and Projects
Conclusion of Manta
Manta Pacific is an Ethereum Layer2 designed specifically for ZK applications, currently based on OP Stack, fully compatible with the EVM environment and Solidity development language; Manta Pacific will implement zkEVM based on Polygon CDK in the future; at the same time, it will use Manta’s general circuits to provide ZK-as-a-Service and utilize Celestia’s modular data availability to offer low gas fees.
The popular Blast recently saw its futures price on Aevo increase from a low of $3.5 to $15.5 within a week, then drop back to $7, indicating that the L2 model focusing on native yields has started to be recognized by the market.
Can Manta, which also leverages New Paradigm to introduce native yields, surpass Blast? Let’s first take a look at the advantages of Manta and where early participants in Manta can find more profit opportunities compared to Blast.
Manta Network is a modular blockchain for zero-knowledge (ZK) applications. Manta Network was created by an experienced founding team from prestigious institutions such as Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Manta Network has received investments from many top Web3 investment funds, including Binance Labs and Polychain Capital.
Manta Pacific is an Ethereum Layer2 designed specifically for ZK applications, currently based on OP Stack, fully compatible with the EVM environment and Solidity development language; Manta Pacific will implement zkEVM based on Polygon CDK in the future; at the same time, it will use Manta’s general circuits to provide ZK-as-a-Service and utilize Celestia’s modular data availability to offer low gas fees.
It can be said that Manta Pacific provides the perfect environment to support ZK applications. Solidity developers do not need cryptographic knowledge or to learn a new language to implement ZK functionality through SDK or API calls.
(Note: Manta’s general circuits are zero-knowledge proof (ZK) circuit libraries designed for general scenarios, providing ZK-as-a-Service to Solidity developers with just a few lines of code to enable ZK functionality in existing applications, including compliant DeFi payments, Web3 social identity verification, full-chain game shuffling, etc. Through the general circuits on Manta Pacific, developers can easily deploy EVM-native ZK applications.)
Manta Pacific launched its mainnet Alpha version on September 12, 2023. It is currently the third largest OP Stack L2, following only Optimism and Base. Once fully transitioned to zkEVM, Manta Pacific may become the largest Polygon zkEVM-based L2 network.
In the current version, Manta Pacific is based on Ethereum’s Optimistic Rollup, using Ethereum’s Data Availability (DA).
It utilizes Manta Network’s general circuits (Universal Circuits) to allow developers to quickly build and deploy applications supporting ZK-related features using Solidity and the general circuits SDK.
Therefore, all existing Ethereum smart contracts can seamlessly adapt to Manta Pacific, while also opening up new application scenarios based on ZK features, such as verifiable DID/KYC, fully on-chain ZK games, and collaboration between DeFi and decentralized identities.
In this phase, Manta Pacific plans to achieve data expansion through the integration of Celestia’s modular data availability (DA), significantly reducing the gas fees for users interacting with dApps within the Manta Pacific ecosystem.
Celestia’s costs are sublinear to Ethereum’s gas prices, making them much cheaper than Ethereum’s current costs.
In this phase, Manta Pacific plans to fully transition to zkEVM and leverage Polygon’s ZK provers.
The final stage of the network architecture will involve using Manta’s general circuits for built-in ZK features to support a wide range of ZK applications, combining Validium services, Celestia DA, zkEVM, and Polygon CDK to achieve scalability.
In the last stage, Manta Pacific will officially launch its mainnet. For the Manta Pacific mainnet, Manta Pacific will further upgrade its general circuits to achieve lower gas costs, while unlocking new application scenarios with novel ZK technology.
From the roadmap of Manta Pacific, it will be the first zkEVM L2 to transition from Optimistic Rollup to Validium, using Polygon CDK to achieve this transition, significantly reducing gas fees through Celestia DA. With Ethereum’s consensus and on-chain cryptographic proofs, it is considered a forward-thinking L2 platform.
Recently, Manta launched the New Paradigm liquidity incentive activity within its ecosystem, similar to the Blast liquidity staking introduced earlier. Users can stake their funds to receive future token airdrop rewards.
However, compared to Blast, the advantage of New Paradigm lies in its rich ecosystem projects and shorter break-even period. Users can receive token airdrops as early as January 2024, while Blast’s airdrop may not be available until May. In comparison, the capital utilization rate in New Paradigm is much higher than Blast.
New Paradigm has five sources of income, including fixed income, NFT incentives, and stacking income from the unique DeFi composability within the L2 ecosystem.
After crossing ETH and USDC into the Manta ecosystem, users can earn about 5% interest even if the assets are idle.
By participating in the event and staking assets, users can receive future MANTA token airdrops.
Engaging with projects within the Manta ecosystem offers potential airdrop opportunities from the projects themselves.
By staking ETH and USDC, users receive Stone and wUSDM to participate in projects within the Manta ecosystem, such as lending projects, to gain benefits offered by the projects.
Earnings from restaking stETH through the Eigenlayer (optional, subject to Eigenlayer Restaking Cap).
(Note: ETH turns into Stone when deposited, and USDC turns into wUSDM. If there is no GAS for subsequent interactions, a third-party bridge, such as MiniBridge, can be used to cross-chain into the Manta network to save GAS. Participation in the event requires funding to be deposited through the event page to receive blind box fragments. Subsequent GAS required for interactions within the Manta ecosystem can be cross-chained through third-party bridges.)
Cross-chain ETH or USDC to Manta Pacific for deposits to earn rewards and box fragments. The deposit period is open until January 2024.
Users receive STONE and wUSDM on Manta Pacific within 24 hours of depositing.
As early as January 2024, users can claim MANTA token rewards through NFT.
After 69 days of receiving MANTA token rewards, users can redeem ETH and USDC using Stone and wUSDM.
The current deposit activity for New Paradigm is in its final sprint phase. Readers who wish to participate can use the invite code from Sang Coins: https://newparadigm.manta.network?inviteCode=YBY7X
In New Paradigm, the earnings from staking ETH come from the StakeStone protocol, while the earnings from staking USDC come from the Mountain Protocol. Next, let’s introduce these two key protocols in the Manta ecosystem:
StakeStone is an all-chain LST (Liquid Stake Token) protocol dedicated to building a decentralized all-in-one staking protocol and a cross-chain market for LST liquidity. Backed by Hashkey Capital, it has received an audit from Secure3Audit.
Users can deposit ETH to receive STONE. For example, if User A deposits 100 ETH in exchange for a certain amount of STONE, and after a year, the value of 1 STONE becomes 1.04 ETH, User A can extract 104 ETH with 100 STONE from StakeStone.
When users deposit ETH into StakeStone, they immediately receive STONE. At the same time, the received ETH enters the vault contract and awaits deployment. After deployment, the ETH in the vault contract will be sent to Lido to exchange for stETH, which will then be held in the strategy vault of StakeStone.
In the future, stETH may be deposited into Eigenlayer for restaking to earn more profits for STONE holders.
Currently, the total amount of ETH deposited in StakeStone is steadily increasing, with a total of 225,498 ETH deposited, equivalent to $515M.
Mountain Protocol is an institutional-level compliant and regulated yield stablecoin protocol, with investment from Coinbase Ventures and audits from well-known audit institutions such as OpenZeppelin.
The stablecoin USDM issued by Mountain Protocol is backed by short-term US government bonds, which are one of the safest assets in the world. Similar to the reserves behind USDC and USDT being short-term US government bonds, according to the risk rating report from the stablecoin rating agency Bluechip, the risk rating of USDM is the same as DAI, making Mountain Protocol both secure and compliant.
In New Paradigm, users who deposit USDC will automatically receive wUSDM (Wrapped USDM) on Manta Pacific, similar to Lido’s wstETH.
During the New Paradigm event, users can consider using wUSDM in other protocols for yield farming. wUSDM can interact with various smart contracts, decentralized applications, and wallets on L2, similar to any other ERC20 token.
Currently, the issuance of USDM has reached $136M according to DefiLlama data, significantly increasing after partnering with Manta.
According to L2 Beat data, the TVL of Manta has reached $559M, surpassing popular L2 chains like Linea and Starknet, currently ranking sixth.
From on-chain data, the number of transactions in the Manta ecosystem has reached nearly 7 million, with a total of 446,454 wallet addresses, showing significant growth in on-chain daily activity over the past three months.
Currently, there are over 200 ecosystem projects on Manta Pacific, with most of them yet to issue tokens. It is foreseeable that Manta has brought in a large number of new users through the New Paradigm event, while also attracting a substantial amount of funds on-chain within the ecosystem. These funds will continue to circulate within the ecosystem, interact with projects in the Manta ecosystem, and gradually cultivate loyal users on the chain.
Here are introductions to some key ecosystem projects on Manta:
QuickSwap: QuickSwap is the largest DEX in terms of trading volume in the Manta ecosystem and one of the most prominent DEXs in the Polygon ecosystem.
iZUMi Finance: iZUMi is a multi-chain DeFi protocol that offers Liquidity as a Service (LaaS), introducing an innovative discrete liquidity automatic market-making model. It has received over $50M in funding from investors like IOSG Ventures, Distributed Capital, Hashkey Capital, and BIXIN Ventures.
LayerBank: LayerBank is currently the largest lending protocol in the Manta ecosystem. The protocol has been audited by Peckshield, with a TVL of $265M. It is deployed on Linea, Scroll, but its primary TVL distribution is in Manta.
Symbiosis: Symbiosis is a cross-chain DEX and liquidity protocol that has raised $2M from investors such as DWF Labs, Shima Capital, Binance Labs, Dragonfly, and Amber Group.
PacificSwap: PacifiSwap is a DEX protocol based on the ve(3,3) model, developed based on the Pancake Swap model, using the innovative CLAMM algorithm.
AsMatch: AsMatch is an online dating application based on zero-knowledge proof ZK. Users can swipe left or right to match or mismatch with other users, and can input the ZK Proof Key of zkSBT into the App to verify on-chain behavior and identity, belonging to the Social category in Manta.
Orbiter Finance: Orbiter Finance is a decentralized Rollup bridge for transferring Ethereum native assets, providing infrastructure for Layer 2. It is one of the largest cross-chain bridges and has raised $3.2M from investors like Starkware and Amber Group.
Minibridge: Minibridge is a cross-chain bridge optimized for small-value transfers, with advantages of low fees and fast receipt. It is rated as users’ favorite bridge on dappsheriff and offers a 50% fee discount during the New Paradigm event. MiniBridge is the award-winning team at Ethereum Shanghai 2023.
As the issuance in 2024 approaches, the token airdrops brought by the MANTA token are expected to further increase the topic of L2 in the first quarter of 2024. With the integration of Manta and Celestia in the next phase, the modular blockchain and ZK EVM dual features can bring unique advantages to Manta.
Therefore, in this phase where most projects in the ecosystem have not issued tokens yet, coupled with the strong backing of Binance Investments, the level of on-chain activity is much lower than chains like Zksync. By participating more in interactions within this chain, increasing asset returns, and speculating on future ecosystem project airdrops, it is considered a highly cost-effective operation.
*This article is authorized for reprinting from Biteye.