And with that, we're back for our very first monthly rundown of the Year 2024. No words are enough to describe what a whirlwind January has been, with multiple freshly-minted ecosystem collaborations, that double dose of $mETH that we're all after, $MNT and other token rewards dropping the beat, and so much more. If January with Mantle whizzed by for you, here are all the highlights you need to know as we get ready for take-off in February.

What's Happening On-Chain

• Total Cumulative Transactions (since Mainnet launch): 51,907,708
• Total Value Locked: $418,259,351
• Total Value Locked (dApps): $142,798,318, with the top protocols being INIT Capital, AGNI Finance and Merchant Moe

Builders and protocols that have built on or integrated with Mantle Network v1 were introduced to Mantle Network v2 Sepolia Testnet, where we've made the shift to the OP stack with the Bedrock upgrade! In addition to this shift, v2 will also enable Meta Transactions, strategies for fee optimization and also the migration of tokens in L2, where we will be eliminating the need for $MNT to use an ERC-20 contract. With a new testnet, we've also added a new faucet, bridge and explorer!

As we put Mantle Network's Sepolia Testnet to the test in its initial phase, you're invited to build on and utilize our new testnet — your feedback will go a long way to ensuring we roll out Mantle Network v2 on mainnet as soon as we can.

Additionally, we've added several new bridges to Mantle's Mainnet Bridge, including Stargate! Each wallet that bridges to Mantle Network via Stargate will be able to receive 1 MNT token as a bonus for their first deposit transaction — more details here.

Try Sepolia Testnet

Rolling in Rewards: Mantle Journey & Moonshot

Mantle Journey and Mantle Moonshot are colossal events that have spanned across months, where we've seen the community and ecosystem interact with Mantle Network day after day. The success of both programs is the culmination of the relentless support of Mantle Network's users and protocols, and we're thrilled to be able to distribute reward pools of 25,000,000 $MNT for Mantle Journey and token rewards from 8 ecosystem protocols to our users.

• With Mantle Journey, more than 290,000 users who created their Mantle Journey Soulbound Tokens (SBTs) amassed more than 262,000,000 Mantle Journey (MJ) Miles to share in a 15,000,000 $MNT reward pool, while 9,205,000 $MNT were won by eligible dApps that ranked on the leaderboard. 50% of the $MNT won by these dApps will be channeled back to future Mantle events for the community and users.
• Under Mantle Moonshot, we collaborated with 8 ecosystem allies — KTX.Finance, AGNI Finance, ApeX Protocol, Lendle, FusionX Finance, MINU, Minterest and iZUMi Finance — to bring ecosystem token rewards to the Mantle community. Users who have upgraded their Citizens of Mantle NFT with a protocol-exclusive add-on trait, and hold the upgraded NFT through snapshot on Feb. 1, 2024, will be eligible for corresponding protocols' tokens from Feb. 21, 2024 onwards.

Mantle is community and ecosystem-driven, and we're thrilled to have been able to bring Mantle Journey, $MNT rewards and even exclusive perks in collaboration with some of our closest ecosystem dApps to Mantle's users. To all participants who stuck with us on this wild ride, we couldn't have done it without you — your feedback has been and continues to be integral in the way we deliver user-focused events. We've summarized some of the community's comments here:

Psst... Mantle Journey Feedback Round 2 is now live, so make sure you share your thoughts on Mantle Journey rewards with us! This will go a long way in helping us design better campaigns and rewards that you'll be interested in engaging with in the future.

21 New Ecosystem Team-Ups

2024 continues to be a year focused on not only building our ecosystem, but sustainable relationships with some of the best dApps in the web3 space at present. As you've seen from our various announcements, we've been working hard to bring you not just new synergistic alliances with projects, but also new features and offerings with some of the dApps you already know and love.

We say hello to 21 new projects that have successfully deployed on Mantle Network Mainnet in the following categories:

• DeFi: Beefy Finance, TsunamiX, Minterest, Cleopatra DEX, TropicalSwap, DODO, INIT Capital
• Infra & Tooling: MNT Gas Station, Okapi, L2Beat, Ledger Live, 0xgraph, Cookie3, Squid, DEX Screener, RPCList and vfat.io.
• Gaming: Gamifly and Stardust.gg
• Social: Star Protocol and AlphaOrBeta

And ICYMI, here are some of the latest updates from our Showcase Apps fam:

• We welcomed Lagrange to Mantle Ecosystem as our newest Showcase App and introduced the upcoming implementation of Lagrange State Committee as a light client for Mantle Network — here's what went down during our AMA with Lagrange and EigenLayer!
• INIT Capital launched its Liquidity Hook Money Market on Mantle Network Mainnet — check out our 1:1 AMA session with them here
• Merchant Moe launched their Mantle Network-native decentralized exchange (DEX) and $JOE staking for $MOE — learn how you can reap some of Merchant Moe's rewards via this AMA session
• TsunamiX deployed on Mantle Network Mainnet
• Ondo Finance just launched its Ondo Points Program

In collaboration with Lido, $wstETH was also recently launched on Mantle Network.

Mantle's Yield Powerhouse Boost

New integrations for Mantle's yield-bearing assets $mETH and $mUSD have arrived, adding to the current list of Mantle Ecosystem dApps that currently support either or both tokens!

• Circuit Protocol: METH/MNT vault has been boosted for a limited time period
• Cleopatra DEX: Offers liquidity pools for USDC/mETH, MNT/mETH and more
• Supra: Get $mETH data and insights
• Gravita Protocol: Interest-free borrowing against $mETH with Cleopatra DEX
• Minterest: Borrowing for $mETH and USDY/MUSD is available on Minterest
• EigenLayer: Restaking for $mETH available on EigenLayer from Feb. 5, 2024
• Rivera Money: Loaded with staking rewards from the mETH-ETH LST Vault
• Bybit: Users can now trade the MUSD/USDT pairing on Bybit Spot

For more integrations, check out this guide.

With the launch of Double-Dose Drive, stakers were quick to snap up $mETH from the Double-Dose Drive within a month of the campaign launching. We followed with a cap raise to 333,333 $mETH, and are stoked to announce that the $mETH limit has been reached! Mantle's Chief Alchemist, Jordi Alexander, hosted a $mETH meme competition, for which he received more than 1,500 entries!

$mETH currently ranks fourth among other liquid staking products barely one month after launch. In other $mETH-related developments, Mantle Core Contributor Team's proposal on Stargate DAO regarding the integration of mETH onto Stargate to enable seamless cross-chain transfers of mETH between Ethereum and Mantle has been passed!

Mantle EcoFund Deploys $10,000,000 in Investments

Mantle EcoFund has committed fresh funding to Merchant Moe, INIT Capital, Butter.xyz, Renzo Protocol, MUFEX and TsunamiX. These six projects join Liquid X, ValentFi and Range Protocol in the EcoFund portfolio.

Mantle EcoFund will provide the projects with liquidity support, which allows for up to a combined 60M USDx (stablecoins), 30k ETH, and 120M $MNT in liquidity provision for EcoFund-invested dApps, with each individual allowance up to 10M USDx, 5000 ETH, and 20M $MNT. Core partner Mirana Ventures will make the second capital call of $30M in accordance with MIP-24 to invest in new Mantle Ecosystem projects in the coming months.

Events

• Mantle's Public Liaison Igneus Terrenus represented Mantle at Crypto 2030 in Davos on a panel with other speakers from Scroll, Conflux Network, Neptune and Waves Protocol
• Head of Ecosystem Research Derek Lim spoke on how blockchain tech can take social enterprises, charities, arts and cultures one step further at the Blockchain to Governance Conference

February Preview

• New giveaways in collaboration with new ecosystem additions
• More utility for Citizens of Mantle NFT
• And much more, so stay tuned to announcements!