Mantle Network, a high-performance modular Ethereum layer-2 (L2) blockchain, unveiled its mainnet at the Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) in Paris. Mantle Network Mainnet Alpha is the culmination of six months of development efforts, during which the network processed 14 million+ on-chain transactions, saw 140,000+ smart contracts deployed, welcomed 48,000+ developers, connected to 690,000+ unique wallet addresses, and maintained a monthly active wallet addresses count of 157,000+. The testnet phase concluded following multiple security audits that helped remove potential risks and vulnerabilities.
High Performance, Robust Security, and Low Fees
Backed by one of the largest on-chain treasuries in the world, and the largest when discounting native tokens, Mantle Network is an L2 solution built with the familiar Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) environment. Unlike the monolithic incumbents that indiscriminately funnel all transactions through the same layer, Mantle Network distinguishes itself as a new type of Ethereum scaling solution by taking a modular chain approach, in which execution, data availability, consensus and settlement are separated into different layers.
With its modular architecture, optimistic rollup design, and implementation of the data availability innovations in collaboration with EigenLayer, a celebrated ETH restaking protocol, Mantle Network combines high performance and lower data availability costs, while being secured by Ethereum.
The modular architecture comes with the added benefit of allowing Mantle Network to stay at the bleeding edge of innovation — unlike upgrades to monolithic layer-1 (L1) chains, which often take months of planning to implement, upgrades of Mantle Network only entail swapping in and out modular parts, and can happen at an expedited cadence. This may lead to Mantle Network becoming the staging ground for novel Ethereum technological advancements such as account abstraction (AA) and upcoming Ethereum improvement proposals, thereby greatly improving the web3 user experience as a whole.
“Mantle Network is the first among the L2 blockchains currently in testnet to hit mainnet, and the only modular chain amongst a forest of monoliths,” said Jordi Alexander, strategic advisor of Mantle. “As this burgeoning space sizzles on the eve of ‘L2 Summer’, the agility enabled by Mantle Network’s adaptive and iterative design will keep it at the bleeding edge of the latest technological breakthroughs for years to come.”
Mantle Network’s strong focus on security is a direct response to the infamous exploits that haunt particularly sidechains that do not use Ethereum for consensus, but rather connect to Ethereum with less-than-secure bridges and compensate with permissioned setups. This compromise on security and decentralization has led to at least one $100 million exploit per month in the year of 2022, and induced a level of reluctance from decentralized protocols with large amounts of liquidity to deploy. By building an EVM L2, and working with EigenLayer, Mantle Network takes an Ethereum-aligned approach, with both robust security and gas fees that are comparable to sidechains, and presents a viable solution for the first time for previously priced-out high frequency decentralized applications (dApps) such as blockchain games and social protocols to move on-chain.
With hyperscale now within reach, game developers can bring many orders of magnitude and more of their game ecosystems on-chain without incurring major gas fees, and do so in a way that does not compromise on security. Social graph protocols and advanced decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that employ complex strategies can become affordable for much broader adoption. Developers are now able to permissionlessly build highly scalable world class dApps that are challenging to build on other networks.
Mantle Network Mainnet Launches With a Vibrant Ecosystem
Mantle Network Mainnet Alpha arrives on the scene with a formidable lineup. Mantle Network counts Game7, a blockchain gaming accelerator, HyperPlay, a web3 game launcher, and EduDAO, a blockchain education initiative, as its ecosystem partners. Mantle also works closely with its core protocol partner EigenLayer, whose innovations in data availability are empowering Mantle DA. The ecosystem is further bolstered by leading infrastructure providers and dApps the likes of Ankr, Biconomy, Bullieverse, Clique, Covalent, FusionX, iZUMi Finance, LayerZero, OpenZeppelin, Particle Network, Pendle, Pyth, Space Falcon, Space ID, The Graph, Thirdweb, and zkMe. To round it all up, a companion NFT titled “Citizens of Mantle” that grows with users on their Mantle journey, created in collaboration with the internationally renowned visual artist Chen Man, has captured the imagination of a wider audience.
Mantle Network offers a Grants Program that speaks volumes to its intention to help grow the web3 space. The program’s milestone-based funding for projects at different development stages.
The wider Mantle Ecosystem is led and accelerated by Mantle Governance, one of the world’s largest decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO), pioneering a vision for a more collaborative decentralized economy to showcase the potential of tokenized governance. The recently DAO-approved Mantle EcoFund, a catalyzed capital pool of $200 million launched in collaboration with strategic venture partners Alumni Ventures Blockchain Fund, Animoca Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Cadenza Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, Figment Capital, Folius Ventures, Ghaf Capital Partners, Hashed, Hashkey Capital, Leadblock Partners, Lemniscap, Pantera Capital, Play Ventures, QCP Capital, Republic Crypto, Selini Capital, SevenX Ventures, Shima Capital, Spartan Group and Whampoa Digital, and operated by Mirana Ventures, lifts off as the one of the largest ecosystem funds of its kind in the space.
“The Mantle EcoFund aims to be the ‘first money’ into high-quality and innovative early-stage projects building within Mantle Ecosystem. Beyond initial investments, the fund has the flexibility to offer liquidity or follow-on investments to portfolio companies,“ said David Toh, general partner of Mirana Venture. “We are grateful for the continued support from our Strategic Venture Partners, who bring with them in-depth knowledge of the industry, product experience, strong networks, and a track record of demonstrated commercial success and returns from previous investments.”
“On top of technological innovations, Mantle stands out in its support for blockchain developers and web3 entrepreneurs through grants, venture funding, and around-the-clock assistance,” said Arjun Kalsy, head of ecosystem of Mantle. “Our world-class developer relations and business development teams, along with our venture partners, are available to our ecosystem at every step of the way, to help drive mass adoption of decentralized and token-governed technologies and shape a brighter future for web3.”
Attendees of Sozu Haus, Stable Summit, EthCC, ETHGlobal Paris and Modular Summit will be able to meet the Mantle team onsite. The team is also giving more than a dozen talks during the week across these events.
ABOUT MANTLE
Mantle is a fast-growing, DAO-led web3 ecosystem whose goal is the mass adoption of decentralized and token-governed technologies. Mantle Ecosystem comprises Mantle products such as Mantle Network, Mantle Governance (DAO), and Mantle Treasury. Mantle token ($MNT) is the unified product and governance token of the ecosystem.
Mantle’s first core product is Mantle Network, a high-performance Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) modular layer-2 (L2) blockchain. Mantle Network’s modular rollup architecture separates transaction execution, data availability, and transaction finality into distinct layers. By virtue of being the first L2 network partner for restaking protocol EigenLayer, Mantle Network inherits security from Ethereum while offering high performance at low fees. As the world’s first DAO-spawned L2, Mantle Network is pioneering a vision for a more collaborative decentralized economy to showcase the potential of tokenized governance. Mantle Network offers a Grants Program that provides milestone-based funding to promising projects that help expand, secure, and decentralize the network and the wider ecosystem.
Mantle token will power Mantle Network as its native gas token, multi-party computation (MPC) validator node staking token, data availability (DA) node staking token, and ecosystem growth token, as well as its sequencer node staking token in the future. All future Mantle products will likewise be powered by Mantle token, as it continues to serve as the governance token of Mantle Governance.
To support the next-generation of innovators, builders, and developers, Mantle is growing its ecosystem via Mantle EcoFund, which helps to manage a catalyzed capital pool of $200M.