Mantle (MNT) is an Ethereum layer-2 network - an EVM-compatible modular rollup that settles to Ethereum - and MNT is its native gas and governance token. Mantle originated from BitDAO, a decentralized treasury organization founded in 2021, and transitioned to the Mantle network through a community governance vote.
MNT also circulates as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum mainnet, its most liquid and widely referenced form, and as a wrapped representation on Solana. On the Mantle chain itself, MNT is the network's native asset rather than a separately deployed contract.
Mantle differentiates itself among Ethereum layer-2s through a concentrated push into tokenized real-world assets (RWA) alongside general-purpose scaling. The network surpassed $1 billion in on-chain total value locked in H1 2026, and RWA-specific TVL grew 27.4% quarter-over-quarter to $247.5 million in Q1 2026.
Recent listings include tokenized equities such as Franklin Templeton's USPX ETF and SpaceX shares via xStocks. As the network's native gas and governance token, MNT captures this activity through transaction fees and treasury-directed ecosystem funding.
MNT is both a utility and governance token. As the native gas token of the Mantle network, it pays transaction fees on-chain. As a governance token, MNT holders vote on-chain to steer network roadmap decisions, treasury allocations, and ecosystem grants, continuing the DAO model inherited from BitDAO.
Holders also use MNT within Mantle's DeFi ecosystem, including its native DEX Fluxion and RWA-focused vault products, where it functions as a trading and liquidity asset.
MNT has a fixed maximum and total supply of 6,219,316,794 MNT, with circulating supply of approximately 3,302,294,382 MNT as of 2026-08-31 - about 53% of total supply.
Mantle's predecessor, BitDAO, raised $230 million in a June 2021 private token sale led by Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and Dragonfly Capital. Alan Howard, Jump Capital, and Spartan Group also participated, and BitDAO separately ran an IDO on Sushi's MISO platform in August 2021.
BIT holders migrated 1:1 to MNT on 2023-07-17, alongside Mantle's mainnet-alpha launch, with MNT reportedly opening trading around $0.4812. The MNT Ethereum ERC-20 contract itself was deployed on 2023-06-20, roughly a month before the public migration and trading launch.
Mantle is its own Ethereum layer-2: an EVM-compatible modular rollup that settles transaction data and proofs to Ethereum mainnet rather than running an independent base-layer consensus mechanism. It inherits security from Ethereum's proof-of-stake consensus while processing transactions through its own sequencer and rollup infrastructure.
Mantle originated from BitDAO, and secondary sources associate early leadership with Jordi Alexander, Arjun Krishan Kalsy, and Joshua Lapidus as core contributors.
Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of the Bybit exchange, is described as an advisor and backer, reflecting Bybit's founding role in seeding BitDAO's treasury.
Mantle is maintained by an on-chain DAO of MNT token holders, supported by the Mantle Treasury inherited from BitDAO's original multi-billion-dollar treasury.
MNT holders govern Mantle through on-chain voting, with voting weight tied to token holdings, continuing the DAO model inherited from BitDAO. The BitDAO-to-Mantle rebrand and BIT-to-MNT token migration were themselves executed through a community governance vote, BIP-21, which passed around May 2023.
Treasury allocations and ecosystem grants, including funding for the Mantle EcoFund, are directed through this on-chain governance process rather than a centralized decision-maker.
Mantle migrated its Super Portal cross-chain infrastructure from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP, reported 2026-07-09, to secure over $2.5 billion in bridged MNT. Super Portal then went live on Solana secured by Chainlink CCIP around 2026-08-08.
OpenZeppelin has audited Mantle's contracts multiple times, covering the token and bridge, the V2 rollup contracts, and node, batcher, and proposer tooling. Sigma Prime conducted a rollup-architecture case study covering fraud-proof and validator assumptions, and Quantstamp audited the bridge contracts, which are forked from Optimism's bridge design. A public bug bounty program has also run alongside these audits.
Holder concentration on the Ethereum ERC-20 is high, with the top 10 addresses holding 87% of supply, though this likely includes bridge and treasury contracts rather than only individual insiders.
