Mantle, the layer 2 scalability solution built atop Ethereum, witnessed its native token surge to a fresh all-time high on Wednesday, pushing its market value to over $4 billion, outperforming the rest of the market.
MNT jumped to a high of $1.45 from a 24-hour low of $0.90. Mantle announced on X (formerly Twitter) that its ‘Mantle Rewards Station’ is now live. This means that users can connect their wallets and lock their MNT into a vault accumulating rewards.
The rewards are fully backed by Mantle’s Treasury, according to a blogpost. They will be distributed in the form of a receipt token called ‘mShard.’ MNT stakers will be able to claim the mShards daily during the locking period (which ends on April 25) by redeeming Ethena Lab’s native token ENA in exchange. There are currently 2.5 billion Ethena Shards estimated to be worth $1.8 million.
Ethena Labs is a synthetic dollar protocol built on Ethereum.
MNT holders already could start locking their tokens from March 25, but the rewards began to be counted officially on Wednesday.
According to Strahinja Savic, head of data and analytics at FRNT Financial, investors might view exposure to layer 2 solutions like Mantle as the potential for higher upside due to their newness.
“Given how crucial layer-2s are to Ethereum, it's not surprising to see layer-2s have these explosive rallies,” said Savic. “Given the relative newness of layer-2s compared to the layer-1 Etheruem network, investors may see greater upside in these tokens compared to ETH.”
South Korean crypto exchange Upbit also announced that it will list Mantle MNT’s trading pair with KRW, BTC and USDT.
The token has dropped slightly from its daily all-time high to levels around $1.30.
Edited by Aoyon Ashraf.