Messari Depth Report: Mantle Rises to Top Three Layer2, 1.07 Billion Capital as Moat

Messari released the latest Depth report, confirming that Mantle has become one of the leading Layer 2 solutions, evolving from a general execution layer to a “distributed payment layer for on-chain finance.” The report noted that Mantle's mETH and cmETH stake assets totaled $1.07 billion, with DeFi TVL reaching $242.3 million, and the circulating market capitalization of MNT exceeding $8.7 billion.

OP-Succinct ZK Upgrade Redefines Withdrawal Speed

Mantle completed a key upgrade from optimistic Rollup to ZK Validium in September 2025, adopting Succinct's SP1 zkVM technology to replace traditional fraud proof mechanisms. This upgrade brings three revolutionary improvements: withdrawal time plummets from the industry standard of 7 days to about 12 hours, finality is shortened from several days to about 1 hour, and it shifts to using EigenDA's ZK validity proof to achieve data availability.

The fundamental change in technical logic lies in the verification method. Traditional optimistic Rollups assume all transactions are valid and only conduct fraud proofs when challenged, thus requiring a 7-day challenge period. In contrast, ZK validity proofs can immediately verify the correctness of each batch of transactions, and the state transitions are confirmed immediately after verification by smart contracts on Ethereum L1. This architecture allows external verifiers to trust the published root state without having to replay all transactions.

The Succinct proof system reduces costs to $0.002 per transaction, maintaining scalability even under high load through aggregation and curve optimization. For users, transactions on Mantle are typically confirmed within seconds, and final confirmation takes about 1 hour after the block is verified on Ethereum. This speed advantage makes Mantle highly competitive in institutional-level applications that require fast settlement.

Data availability is handled off-chain by EigenDA, rather than publishing complete transaction data to Layer-1. This design maintains Ethereum-level execution security, enhances finality through validity proofs, and reduces costs by outsourcing data storage to a specialized set of EigenDA operators. EigenDA utilizes a decentralized network of operators, providing data storage guarantees through staking or re-staking funds. Data is encoded with erasure coding and divided into fragments distributed to various operators, and as long as a sufficient number of operators maintain honest uptime, the client can reconstruct the complete batch data.

1.07 billion USD stake empire tightly bound with CEX Depth

(Source: Messari)

The capital foundation of Mantle is built on staking and re-staking ecology. By the end of 2025, mETH will hold ETH worth $791.7 million, and cmETH will hold ETH worth $277 million, with a total of approximately $1.07 billion in underlying assets. This scale makes Mantle one of the largest liquidity staking protocols in the Ethereum ecosystem, second only to Lido.

mETH is a liquidity staking token developed by Mantle, with each mETH representing a claim on staked ETH and its accumulated rewards. As of December 10, 2025, the exchange rate for 1 mETH is 1.08 ETH. Despite a 53.9% decline in TVL compared to last year (from $1.72 billion to $791.7 million), mETH has gained widespread recognition in public company treasuries, on-chain treasuries, and DeFi protocols. In May 2025, Ethereum technology service provider Republic Technologies allocated most of its ETH to mETH, and Nouns DAO also approved the allocation of 1,000 ETH to mETH.

cmETH is a liquidity re-staking version of mETH, allowing holders to earn diversified rewards from networks such as EigenLayer, Symbiotic, and Karak. In June 2025, CEX, Mantle, and EigenLayer jointly launched an event to reward cmETH minters with an additional pool of 100,000 EIGEN bonuses. Various DeFi protocols have implemented cmETH: Pendle supports trading and locking fixed income, Morpho allows lending with cmETH as collateral, and HyperSwap provides liquidity pools with native point incentives.

Three Strategic Pillars of CEX Integration

Trading Pair Expansion: 21 spot trading pairs priced in MNT will be launched in September 2025, making MNT the base asset of the main trading area and enhancing price discovery efficiency.

Fee Discount Mechanism: 25% discount for spot trading, 10% discount for futures trading, VIP members' MNT balance enjoys a 1.3-1.5 times multiplier discount.

Institutional Grade Products: The MNT x Institutional program offers up to 8x leverage for spot trading and a maximum loan term of 4 months at a fixed interest rate.

This deep binding has led to a daily trading volume of 70 million USD for CEX's MNT, accounting for about 80% of the market share of all exchanges. During this period, the price of MNT reached a historic high of approximately 2.70 USD, and the circulating market capitalization reached approximately 8.7 billion USD on October 8, 2025.

Institutional-level Tokenization and Decentralized Finance Ecosystem Dual Engine

The tokenization as a service (TaaS) platform of Mantle will launch on October 2, 2025, providing end-to-end compliance solutions, including licensing and KYC, legal framework, smart contract deployment, security monitoring, and secondary market liquidity. Ondo Finance's USDY (a tokenized note backed by short-term US Treasury bills and bank deposits) has reached a scale of 29 million USD on Mantle. World Liberty Financial announced that its USD1 stablecoin, backed by US dollars, will launch on Mantle.

The DeFi ecosystem presents a dual oligopoly pattern. As of September 30, 2025, the DeFi TVL on Mantle reached 242.3 million USD, with Merchant Moe and Agni accounting for a total of 66%. Merchant Moe, as the largest DEX, has a TVL of approximately 59 million USD and a 30-day trading volume of 308 million USD. Agni Finance has a TVL of approximately 36.3 million USD and a 30-day trading volume of 169 million USD.