- Manta Pacific’s TVL has skyrocketed in the past month.
- The project is now the tenth-largest blockchain by TVL.
- The project’s rise is linked to a Blast-inspired marketing campaign.
There’s hardly a dull moment in the Ethereum Layer 2 space as new chains and narratives burst onto the scene in rapid succession. Manta Pacific is the most recent Layer 2 to grab market-wide attention, a part of the zero knowledge-focused Manta ecosystem. In the past month, the network’s TVL has surged by over 2,300% as it takes a page from Blast, another Layer 2 project that has stoked excitement in recent months.
The Manta New Paradigm Campaign
At the time of writing, Defi Llama data suggests that Manta is the tenth-largest blockchain by TVL, with $418 million following a 2,300% surge in the past month. In its current position, Manta is just behind Coinbase‘s Base, which boasts a TVL of over $429 million, and far ahead of Cardano, which has a TVL of about $364 million.
Manta TVL is skyrocketing. Now #10 on DefiLlama right behind Base.
Surprised me—anyone know what's driving this?https://t.co/9mbhb17doM pic.twitter.com/wBxPmk7gZf
— Haseeb ＞|＜ (@hosseeb) January 16, 2024
The spike in Manta interest appears linked to its New Paradigm campaign, which takes a page from Blast’s marketing strategy by offering 4 to 5% yield on bridged ETH and USDC in addition to the promise of airdrops of 50 million MANTA tokens redeemable in January 2024. But that is where the similarities end.
Unlike Blast, Manta also offers users receipt tokens on their deposits, StoneETH and wUSDM, which can earn yield within the existing Manta Pacific ecosystem and potentially increase promised airdrop rewards.
At the same time, NFTs are also up for grabs, with rewards for these NFTs dependent on rarity and certain combinations offering unique rewards. These NFTs are already tradable on marketplaces like Element and Pixel Realm.
What You Need To Know About Manta Pacific
Per the Manta Network documentation, Manta Pacific is designed to provide a scalable and cheap environment for deploying ZK EVM-compatible applications. In October 2023, the network, built on Optimism‘s OP Stack, grabbed headlines by announcing plans to transition to a zkEVM with Polygon’s CDK, citing the improved user experience with faster withdrawals to Ethereum.
At the time of writing, like Blast, Manta remains invite-only, requiring invite codes from new users seeking access to the network.
On the Flipside
- The contract holding Manta user deposits has yet to become open source, though the project claims to have been audited by Veridise.
- Binance recently added MANTA to its launchpool, allowing users to earn the token by staking BNB and FDUSD.
- Unlike Blast, which in its current form is essentially a multi-signature contract controlled by five persons, Manta is already a functional Ethereum Layer 2.
Why This Matters
Manta’s rise highlights the growing excitement around Ethereum Layer 2 projects and the popularity of projects that reward early users.
Read this for more on Manta:
Here’s Why Manta Is Ditching OP Stack for the Polygon CDK
Learn more about the recent ETH staking exodus:
Here’s What Drove Ethereum’s Record 650K+ ETH Staking Exodus
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