Recap of Exclusive AMA: StealthEX & Mantle

February 18, 2025

Recap of Exclusive AMA: StealthEX & Mantle

StealthEX instant crypto exchange recently hosted an insightful AMA session with Mantle Network, featuring Gabe, the lead for DeFi Growth at Mantle. The discussion covered Mantle’s modular architecture, upcoming innovations, and strategic direction in the blockchain space.

Questions from Twitter

Q1: In what ways does Mantle’s modular architecture facilitate future scalability upgrades, and what modules are currently prioritized for development?

Gabe: Mantle adopts a unique modular architecture that allows us to integrate the best components of blockchain technology and remain future-proof. This approach enables us to easily incorporate the latest innovations and cutting-edge technology.

One of our primary focuses is Mantle DA, a data availability solution developed in collaboration with EigenLayer and EigenDA. It allows Mantle to offload call data and transaction information onto a separate layer secured by the network, significantly reducing gas fees by about 60-80%. As a result, Mantle transactions average around 1 cent in gas fees.

Another upcoming upgrade is our transition from an optimistic rollup model to a ZK rollup. This will enhance security, improve finality, and shorten withdrawal times from 7 days to just 1 hour, making transactions more efficient and cost-effective.

Q2: What specific use cases or industries do you see as the most promising for Mantle technology? How do you plan to support developers in building applications in those areas?

Gabe: Mantle is a generalized EVM-compatible chain, allowing developers to build across various sectors like DeFi, NFTs, and gaming. What sets us apart is our strong ecosystem backing, including products like liquid staking, wrapped BTC, and an upcoming index fund.

Additionally, Mantle has the largest on-chain treasury in the industry, valued at around $4 billion. A significant portion of this is in Ethereum and stablecoins, actively deployed to support promising projects. This financial backing provides developers with access to grants, incentives, and comprehensive support throughout their journey.

Q3: How does Mantle’s smart contract execution compare to Ethereum in terms of EVM compatibility, gas mechanics, and support for new Solidity features?

Gabe: Mantle is fully EVM-compatible and initially built on Optimism’s OVM2, later upgraded to Bedrock. Developers familiar with Solidity can seamlessly deploy projects on Mantle without modifications. We ensure that all the latest Solidity features and EVM opcodes are supported, making development smooth and efficient.

Q4: Mantle has announced three pillars of innovation for 2025. Can you elaborate on how the enhanced index fund, Mantle Banking, and Mantle X will redefine on-chain finance?

Gabe: The Enhanced Index Fund provides institutions an easy, capital-efficient way to gain exposure to crypto via a curated portfolio of yield-bearing assets such as MEF (liquid staking), wrapped BTC (FBTC), and SUSD (stablecoin from Athena).

Mantle Banking aims to bridge fiat and crypto, offering blockchain-based solutions for payments, lending, and wealth management while maintaining a DeFi-first approach.

Mantle X focuses on AI-driven DeFi solutions, automating treasury management and leveraging AI for portfolio optimization. This initiative is particularly exciting as it explores the intersection of crypto and AI.

Q5: Can you discuss any upcoming features or updates that will significantly enhance the user experience and platform value?

Gabe: Our biggest upgrade is the transition from an Optimistic Rollup to a ZK-EVM stack, making Mantle the largest ZK-EVM chain. This shift offers faster withdrawals (1 hour instead of 7 days) and increased security.

Another major improvement is RIP-7212, which allows hardware-based signatures, enabling authentication via Apple Face ID and Android Face Unlock. This will drastically improve accessibility and user experience, making crypto interactions as intuitive as Web2 applications.

Q6: Many users don’t fully understand EigenDA. Can you elaborate on how it works and its impact on transaction costs and efficiency?

Gabe: EigenDA is a decentralized data availability layer that stores blockchain data off-chain, reducing congestion and gas fees. It allows L2 chains like Mantle to scale more efficiently by leveraging Ethereum’s security through restaking.

Compared to Ethereum’s blob technology (EIP-4844), EigenDA offers predictable costs and better stability. While blobs can reduce fees, they fluctuate based on demand, whereas EigenDA remains consistently 60-80% cheaper than traditional Layer 2 solutions.

Q7: What have been the biggest challenges in developing and scaling Mantle, and what milestones can we expect in 2025?

Gabe: The biggest challenge is ensuring that Mantle provides robust infrastructure and developer tooling to facilitate innovation. Essential components like interoperability solutions, oracles, RPC providers, and account abstraction are critical to ensuring seamless development.

In 2025, Mantle is focused on:

Expanding its ecosystem with key partners like Merchant Moe, Athena, Compound, and Pendle.
Strengthening liquid staking (MEF) and wrapped BTC (FBTC).
Launching its index fund, Mantle Banking, and Mantle X to push on-chain finance forward.

Q8: How do Mantle’s integrations with LayerZero and other protocols impact ecosystem expansion and user engagement?

Gabe: Interoperability is key to Mantle’s growth. Users shouldn’t need to know which blockchain they’re interacting with—the experience should be seamless. LayerZero and other cross-chain solutions enable developers to abstract blockchain complexity, allowing users to engage with applications effortlessly.

By prioritizing developer-friendly infrastructure, Mantle ensures that innovative projects can be built efficiently, ultimately leading to greater adoption.

Q9: What core values drive Mantle’s development, and how do they align with the Web3 community’s needs?

Gabe: While Web3 is the foundation, our mission is broader—we aim for mass adoption. The Web3 community consists of early adopters, but to onboard the next billion users, we need to build solutions that cater to everyone.

Our core values include:

Modular Architecture: Ensuring adaptability and future-proofing the network.
Financial Accessibility: Driving real-world value through on-chain finance.
Developer-Centric Approach: Supporting early-stage builders with grants and resources.

Q10: How is Mantle engaging with AI developments, and what role does AI play in the network’s future?

Gabe: Mantle X is our primary AI initiative, focusing on AI-driven DeFi strategies. We are actively collaborating with AI agent developers to integrate automated portfolio management and treasury optimization solutions within the Mantle ecosystem.

Given AI’s growing importance, Mantle is positioned to leverage this technology for smarter, more efficient financial applications.

StealthEX: Thank you all for joining today!