A look at Manta Network — an EVM-equivalent Layer-2 blockchain for Ethereum, seeking to be the home for ZK applications.
Manta Network has its origins in privacy technology, championing the privacy of blockchain transactions with its original Polkadot parachain, Manta, which is now known as Manta Atlantic. Manta Atlantic launched in 2021 and focused on zero-knowledge (ZK) compliance via zkSNARKs to facilitate real-world adoption and interoperability with other chains.
Source: Manta Network Docs
In July 2023, Manta Pacific was launched as an Optimistic rollup on Optimism’s OP Stack, while offering a platform for specialized ZK applications to be built on. Shortly after its launch however, the team made a major pivot to transition to a zk-rollup instead, leveraging Polygon’s Chain Development Kit (CDK). Manta Pacific aimed to be an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) equivalent L2 blockchain for Ethereum, seeking to be the home for ZK applications. Additionally, the L2 would rely on Celestia for its data availability needs.
Source: Manta Network Medium
One of Manta Pacific’s core innovations was the release of Universal Circuits, a versatile library of ZK circuits designed to help developers enable ZK features with just a few lines of code. These features include compliant private payments for DeFi, identity verification for Web3 applications and privacy-preserving shuffling for gaming applications among others.
However, the chain still largely stayed under the radar, with total value locked (TVL) on the chain barely exceeding $20 million.
That is, until the launch of the Manta New Paradigm campaign.
Manta New Paradigm Campaign
Manta Network started to gain significant traction in mid-December 2023, when they launched a new campaign Manta New Paradigm, a slight dig at Layer-2 Blast, which drew controversy over its stake-for-points campaign earlier in 2023. Much like Blast, Manta Pacific sought to allow depositors on the chain to earn yield on their tokens through staking, airdrop rewards and DeFi applications to introduce composability to yield-bearing tokens.
Source: Manta New Paradigm Campaign
In this campaign, users could deposit ETH or USDC onto the Manta Pacific L2 via the Manta Pacific official bridge. Users who deposited would then receive their respective liquid staking derivative tokens, which could then be used on the Manta Pacific chain in DeFi applications. This was achieved through partnerships with omni-chain staking solution, StakeStone, and yield-bearing stablecoin protocol, Mountain Protocol.
ETH depositors received STONE tokens, which earned yield from native staking on the Ethereum L1, while USDC depositors received wUSDM, earning yield from the US Treasury Bills that Mountain Protocol invests in. The original deposited tokens were then locked, with users only able to withdraw their initial token deposits 69 days after the distribution of the MANTA token airdrop.
Beyond just earning native staking yields and airdrop rewards, the New Paradigm campaign also boasted additional yield through DeFi applications which were already live on the chain, additional incentives from ecosystem projects as well as yield from EigenLayer through restaking stETH. This was in contrast to Blast, whose testnet was not live at that point.
Source: Manta New Paradigm Campaign
As part of the campaign rewards, users also earned Box Pieces based on the amount deposited into the campaign as well as the amounts deposited by the users they referred to the campaign. Once a user has earned 25 Box Pieces, they would be combined into a Common Lucky Box. These Common Lucky Boxes could be opened to yield one of six different NFTs of varying rarities. A 7th NFT, “The First Modular L2”, could also be obtained by burning one of each of the six different NFTs.
Source: Manta New Paradigm Campaign
Beyond the usual Common Lucky Box, Frenzy Growth Lucky Boxes were also available. Each Common Lucky Box has a chance to turn into a Frenzy Growth Lucky Box, which would yield a random set of between two and twenty NFTs from the collection. The chances of this occurring is based on the Frenzy Growth Percentage, which starts at 1% but increases by 5% every time a Common Lucky Box opened is not a Frenzy Growth Lucky Box. Once the user obtains a Frenzy Growth Lucky Box, the percentage is reset again to 1%. Users can also increase their percentage by hitting team goals such as 5 ETH or 20 ETH deposited as a team.
Manta Network Airdrop
On Jan. 5, 2024, just three weeks into the New Paradigm campaign, Manta Network announced the first phase of the MANTA airdrop, which rewarded early adopters of both Manta Pacific and Manta Atlantic. In this airdrop, 5% of the total token supply was airdropped. Majority of these tokens went to participants in prior campaigns run by Manta Network.
Source: Manta Network Medium
A week later, the airdrop allocation for the Manta New Paradigm campaign was announced, allowing users to redeem their Manta New Paradigm NFTs for MANTA token allocations. The lowest rarity NFT, “Tier 1 Backers”, scored an allocation of 5.983 MANTA tokens, while the highest tier, “The First Modular L2”, received 258.93 MANTA tokens, around $687 at the current MANTA price.
Manta Network Tokenomics
The MANTA token has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, with 36% being allocated to airdrops, Binance Launchpad and ecosystem growth. The remainder were allocated to private investors, the Manta Network team and the Manta Foundation.
Source: Manta Network Medium
On launch, the initial circulating supply was 251 million tokens, or just over 25% of the total supply. Investors’ tokens are vested over time, with 100% of tokens being unlocked by January 2028.
Source: Manta Network Medium
Conclusion
At the time of writing, Manta Pacific Network alone holds more than $465 million in TVL and has obtained a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of well over $3.5 billion. The team has released a detailed roadmap:
Source: Manta Pacific Medium
With the launch of the MANTA token, MANTA staking has gone live on Manta Atlantic. At the same time, Manta Pacific is still in the process of transitioning to a zkEVM chain via Polygon’s CDK which has been in the works since December 2023 after the completion of the migration to Celestia. In the fourth phase of their current roadmap, the team will continue to develop Universal Circuits 2.0 to bring a better user experience to users on the chain and reduced costs for them.
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