Manta Open Letter: We will further develop the Manta ecosystem and work with the community to promote real large-scale applications

Layer2 Infrastructure Manta Network Co-founder Victor Ji Released an Open Letter on X Platform, the Content is Organized as Follows:

Hello everyone, during the four months after the TGE, I would like to share our progress from the perspective of the founders. For us, users and the community are everything. We hope to communicate through voice, text, and various means to show everyone Manta's continuous development and gather more feedback.

First, let's talk about the TVL, which everyone is most concerned about. From 2 billion to around 800 million, there has been a significant decline. We believe this is related to the excessively high yields offered by various L2 and restaking projects in the current market. Many are learning from Manta's New Paradigm, turning this locked airdrop model into a basic operation for every L2 (regardless of how long it takes to go live on the mainnet). Although Manta has continuously developed the Renew Paradigm to provide better opportunities for projects within the ecosystem, we found that many users do not care about ecosystem projects, only expecting chain yields. This forces us to either provide an astonishing amount of Manta to maintain TVL or choose to accept the loss of TVL. However, when we discovered that the ecosystem projects within the Renew Paradigm lacked attractiveness, we chose another direction.

1) With the launch of Manta CeDeFi today, we have brought the funding rates' yields, which are the highest in this market-neutral space, to BTC, ETH, and stablecoins on-chain. All assets can rely on CeDeFi products to obtain relatively high native yields. This is more sustainable and stable than Manta token subsidies. As the market capitalization of various L2s continues to shrink, we can see that the era of incentivizing TVL with native tokens is basically over. In addition to the current CeDeFi, Manta is also very focused on building the RWA direction of the ecosystem. We initially collaborated with the most compliant native yield stablecoin, USDM, in the United States, and everyone will see further developments after this collaboration. In Asia, we joined the Hong Kong Cyberport, which will further promote the behavior of financial institutions on-chain.

2) We will further develop Manta's ecosystem. Our ecosystem projects have increased to over 200, with more than 50 projects listed on DeFiLlama, demonstrating that Manta has a comprehensive ecosystem without any obvious missing pieces. However, Manta also needs true builders who are committed to continuously building better products within the ecosystem. Currently, Manta faces the same issues as Ethereum and all EVMs: there are many builders, but not enough collaboration within the ecosystem to persistently iterate products. We have seen some potential in the zk app accelerator, such as Nimble and Gull, which are very distinctive projects within Manta native. Additionally, there have been various issues in coordinating ecosystem projects in the previous Renew Paradigm, such as the delayed airdrop of Zerolend and Stakestone not receiving Eigenlayer points, etc. However, the products and technologies of ecosystem projects have some limitations, making timely iteration difficult. We apologize to the community for this and will learn from these lessons to promote the realization of related yields earlier. In summary, Manta has a solid foundation with very low gas fees, direct ETH deposits and withdrawals on Binance, and a very open ecological environment. At the same time, we will further hold hackathons, open governance systems, and grant application mechanisms to promote real large-scale applications together with the community.

3) In terms of infrastructure development, we are also integrating Type 1 Prover and striving to make Manta the first L2 to implement multiprover within the OP stack. On the underlying layer of zk applications, we are also working hard to promote product integration related to RWA scenarios. Additionally, we are exploring more decentralized solutions in areas such as decentralized sequencers.

Manta is currently in a challenging period, but it is far from the difficulties we faced at the beginning of 2023. Manta still has a strong global community. When we walk in New York, Bali, Hong Kong, and Korea, we see people recognizing the Manta logo and engaging with us. This year, the founders of Manta moved to Asia, and the collaboration with enterprises and the promotion of large-scale implementations are already showing results. We continue to build, just like we have for the past four years. We may not be the first in every field, but we consistently deliver products that allow community users and builders to participate more interestingly. We continue to hold events with ecosystem partners and even competitors without charging admission, building a positive and open brand. Just like we were the first to achieve a modular L2 and the first native yield L2 to go live on the mainnet, we are continuously iterating quickly and launching new products. There are many L2s, but just like our participation in the New Paradigm NFT, tier 1 backers are the least valuable, yet the first modular L2 is only Manta. This comes from our team's relentless development efforts and the ongoing support from the community. We look forward to Manta's ecosystem and to seeing more of you within the ecosystem.

Best, Victor Ji Co-founder of Manta Network