Introduction
With an emphasis on zero-knowledge (ZK) applications, Manta Network offers a multi-modular ecosystem made up of two blockchain networks. The company was founded with the goal of addressing the shortcomings of current blockchain solutions. It is basically a multi-modular ecosystem for zero-knowledge (ZK) applications.
Manta Atlantic, the quickest ZK Layer 1 chain on Polkadot, is where Manta Network first got its start. Then, with the arrival of Manta Pacific, a community-driven modular Layer 2 platform, the ecosystem grew. The fundamental idea is to empower consumers by providing them with an easy-to-use and affordable environment for implementing ZK applications. This approach addresses the drawbacks of existing systems, which include expensive gas prices and sluggish performance.
Together, Manta Pacific and Manta Atlantic deliver an unparalleled experience for the next generation of web3 application development and adoption with the applied usage of zero-knowledge cryptography.
Founding Story
Manta Network was created by a team of experienced founders from prestigious institutions, including Harvard, MIT, and Algorand. Manta Network has received investments from many top web3 investment funds, including Binance Labs and Polychain Capital. It has grown through participation in the best web3 accelerators, including Alliance DAO and Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator. Manta Network is poised to bring the next generation of web3 users and usher in a new chapter of web3 zkApp applications.
Lead investors in the round are crypto-focused Polychain Capital and China-focused venture firm Qiming Venture Partners, which has built a reputation in web3 for backing projects like the imToken wallet and web3 infrastructure platform InfStones. Other backers include Alliance, CoinFund and SevenX Ventures. Past investors include Binance’s investment arm, Binance Labs.
P0x Labs’ valuation is buoyed by an emerging technology called zero knowledge, which is rapidly gaining popularity in decentralized finance (DeFi) by addressing a key user pain point: ensuring blockchain transparency while maintaining user privacy.
In addition, the network’s native wallet, Manta Wallet, has amassed over 200,000 installs. Its ecosystem projects ReadOn, Dmail and AsMatch, which altogether have over 1.5 million users, have integrated zkSBT (zero-knowledge soulbound token) functionality for private user identity and other privacy features.
At present, in Jan 2024, Manta Network boasts $506.64m in total value locked and $4.81m in 24H volume.
How Manta Network Works?
- What is Manta Pacific (Layer 2)?
ZK apps that are native to EVMs have no place to live as of yet. Because ZK applications prioritize user safety in an otherwise typical dApp experience, we think they represent the next generation of decentralized apps. As such, fostering the ideal environment for ZK applications to flourish is essential to the ongoing development and expansion of web3.
The needs of ZK applications to deploy and grow users in a scalable way are not fully addressed by current technologies. The tools needed to create and implement ZK apps are not available on general virtual machines (VMs), EVM blockchains, or zkEVM; even if you are successful, your customers will have to put up with expensive gas prices and sluggish performance. ZK networks that offer virtual machine environments necessitate that developers learn new programming languages, which confine such apps to certain ecosystems with small user bases. Manta Pacific's noteworthy characteristics include:
Manta Pacific offers programmable ZK as an EVM-native L2
Manta’s Universal Circuits enable easy ZK application development using only Solidity
Leveraging Celestia for data availability and the zkEVM for scalability, Manta Pacific provides high scalability and low transaction fees for ZK applications.
Manta Pacific's Universal Circuits make ZK application development accessible using only Solidity, eliminating the need for developers to learn new languages. This user-friendly approach fosters a more inclusive developer community. Leveraging Celestia for data availability and zkEVM for scalability, Manta Pacific achieves high scalability and low transaction fees. Celestia's modular data availability, based on 2D Reed-Solomon erasure coding and Namespaced Merkle Trees (NMTs), significantly reduces transaction costs for end-users.
Manta Pacific takes all of the work that the Manta team has already built on ZK and applies it directly into a scalable EVM environment specifically designed for deploying ZK applications through the help of Celestia and the zkEVM. Manta Pacific’s modular stack provides unparalleled scalability for future zkApps building on top of our ecosystem.
Manta Pacific presents Universal Circuits 2.0, an enhanced developer experience designed to facilitate the deployment of ZK applications that are native to the EVM. Manta Pacific provides a ZK library allowing developers to invoke ZK-enabled contracts for their existing Solidity smart contracts and dApps with ease through Universal Circuits 2.0. With just a few lines of code, any Solidity developer can enable ZK features (like compliant private identities for DeFi, identity verification for Web3 Social, and zk identity-preserving shuffling for on-chain gaming) by calling Manta Pacific contracts through APIs thanks to Universal Circuits' ZK-as-a-Service. zkContracts, including zkShuffle for on-chain gambling, and other circuits based on Semaphore from the Identity Scaling and Exploration (PSE) Labs from the Ethereum Foundation are among Manta Pacific's fundamental circuit designs for its Universal Circuits.
A multi-modular approach provides developers the flexibility to leverage Manta’s private identity tools across chains and in web2 environments including mobile apps. Manta’s SDKs and proof keys offer developer-friendly solutions for integrating on-chain identity with just a few lines of code.
From DeFi to gaming to social, apps deploying on Manta are designed to bring the best experience and value to real users. The Manta Ecosystem Grants Program is designed to explore and grow new and valuable use cases to solve pain points faced by real users. Manta Pacific is the first EVM-equivalent ZK-application platform that achieves scalability and security through Celestia DA and Polygon zkEVM. We take all of the work that the Manta team has already built on ZK and apply it directly into a scalable EVM environment specifically designed for deploying ZK applications. Manta Network will continue to achieve growth, and with the introduction of Manta Pacific, will expand that growth into an even larger ecosystem for both web3 and web2. If you are building applications and are interested in learning more about how to build within the Manta Network ecosystem, please reach out. We welcome you to join us on the exciting adventure ahead!
- What is Manta Atlantic (Layer 1)?
The future is bright for Manta Network as it grows through real-world adoption and interoperability. The fact that more than 1.5 million Web3 users can now access zkSBT capabilities demonstrates its emphasis on practical adoption. The project's potential influence and usefulness in the larger blockchain landscape are further shown by its acceptance in BNB Chain initiatives. Manta Network has demonstrated its dedication to attaining continuous growth and ushering in a new chapter of Web3 zk apps by collaboration with famous institutions, investment funds, and participation in top Web3 accelerators.
Compared with those zk identity layers 1 to build a zk smart contract language, Manta Atlantic is focusing more on the ZK compliance credential layer with real adoption and interoperability to make other projects have interoperable identities without dealing with any cryptography work.
The Manta’s zk circuit and infrastructure has been developed by two years, it has a public account based address system and an UTXO based private address system, we call it zkAddress. The zkAddress shielded information including SBT minting, onchain credentials, offchain identities. It is the first private address system that is reusable, independent and auditable. Also the first one supports multiple NFTs, which has its own seed phase and can sync on different devices. With Prove Key, users are able to share the certain credential of the zkAddress without leaking zk identity.
Compatibility
Manta Pacific chain is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, allowing them to run standard Ethereum smart contract code without modification or recompilation. This compatibility means that Manta Pacific work seamlessly with a wide range of existing Ethereum tooling, including:
General-purpose libraries like Ethers.js and Web3.js
Developer tools like Hardhat and Foundry
Popular wallets like Metamask
This makes it easy for developers to build and deploy smart contracts, using the same tools and techniques they are already familiar with. Additionally, this compatibility ensures that existing Ethereum-based dApps can be easily ported to Manta Pacific with minimal modifications, providing a wide range of use cases and opportunities for developers to create new decentralized applications.
$MANTA Token & Market Cap
Manta Network is the modular ecosystem built for scalable, next-generation dApps. It currently offers two networks Manta Pacific and Manta Atlantic.
- $MANTA Utility on Manta Pacific
Manta Pacific is designed to thrive on on-chain activities, generating value for token holders, contributors, builders, and users:
Value Accrual for Token Holders: Token holders benefit from the productive re-deployment of sequencer revenue and gas savings.
Builders and Contributors: Builders and contributors receive direct benefits from retroactive on-chain activities funding and the markets it enables. A symbiotic relationship emerges as a well-funded ecosystem attracts builders, fostering the growth of tools, education, apps, and infrastructure. Revenue is distributed to ecosystem projects and public goods funding, continually incentivizing, fostering innovation, supporting early-stage projects, and driving the adoption of cutting-edge technologies in the Manta ecosystem.
Users and Community Members: Ongoing ecosystem and community incentives and project incentives funded by $MANTA benefit users and community members. The value extends from the advantages provided by on-chain activities and zk applications.
- $MANTA Utility on Manta Atlantic
$MANTA serves various functions within the Manta Atlantic ecosystem:
Network Usage Fee: Transactions and contract/pallet executions incur a usage fee. 72% of network usage fees are allocated to ecosystem projects, enhancing incentives for apps built on Manta. 18% goes to the treasury, governed to incentivize network development and future parachain auctions. 10% is distributed to collators producing blocks containing transactions.
Medium of Exchange: $MANTA acts as the native currency for Manta Network, facilitating peer-to-peer transfers and transactions with contracts/pallets. $MANTA can purchase credentials like zkSBTs and zkKYCs within the network.
Governance Rights: $MANTA serves as the voting weight for on-chain governance decisions. It is utilized for proposing referenda, electing council members, and shaping the future of the Manta network.
Network Security: Collators play a crucial role in bundling transactions and supporting block liveness. $MANTA tokens incentivize collators, ensuring a robust and decentralized network. The network allocates an annual 2% of total issuance to stakers for maintaining network security.
A portion of the $MANTA supply is allocated to airdrops to reward the real, active, and pioneering users who participate in and support the Manta ecosystem.
- $MANTA Token Allocation
$MANTA will initially have a total supply of 1,000,000,000 $MANTA distributed among the categories outlined in the chart and table below.
The total initial supply of $MANTA at launch is 1 billion tokens. Both the Atlantic and Pacific networks will have a representation of these 1 billion tokens. As liquidity flows between the two networks, the tokens will be locked and unlocked on liquidity pool of the Celer bridge. The total amount of unlocked tokens from both Manta Atlantic and Manta Pacific determines the current circulating supply.
Tokens allocated to the Public Investors, Private Investors, Strategic Investors, Institutional Investors, Foundation, Team, and Advisors will be distributed and unlocked on Manta Atlantic. Manta Pacific has a contract that locks its supply of tokens allocated for Atlantic. As the Atlantic tokens are unlocked according to vesting, the Pacific contract will deploy the corresponding unlocked tokens into the Celer liquidity pool. By doing this, token holders are able to bridge between the two networks.
- Token Releasing Schedule
The initial circle supply of MANTA at TGE will be 251,000,000. During the TGE phase, the released MANTA tokens will be allocated for Airdrop, New Paradigm (Airdrop 2), Public Sale, Advisors, and Ecosystem & Community.
Airdrop- 5.60%: The airdrop will be claimable for a period of 6 months. 50,000,000 $MANTA of “Into the Blue” event token airdrop will unlock during TGE. 6,000,000 $MANTA will unlock during TGE and be distributed to users participating in the Binance Parachain auction.
New Paradigm (Airdrop 2): 6.5%: 50,000,000 $MANTA NFT reward will be released at TGE. 15,000,000 $MANTA ecosystem incentives will be released 3 months after TGE.
Binance Launchpool- 3%: 100% release at TGE.
Public Sale- 8%: 40,000,000 $MANTA at TGE; the remainder is released monthly (at the end of each month) over 6 months.
Private Round- 12.94%: 12 months cliff and linear release over 36 months.
Strategic Investors- 6.17%: 12 months cliff and linear release over 36 months.
Institution Investors- 5.00%: 12 months cliff and linear release over 36 months.
Ecosystem / Community- 21.19%: 50,000,000 $MANTA at TGE; the remainder is released linearly over 48 months. The tokens will be distributed through governance.
Foundation Treasury- 13.50%: Linear release over 72 months.
Team- 10.00%: 18 months cliff and 48 months linear release.
Advisors- 8.10%: 25,000,000 $MANTA at TGE; the remainder is released monthly (at the end of each month) over 30 months.
Estimated Validator / Emission Rewards- 2% per year: The total supply of $MANTA at Genesis is 1,000,000,000.
Summary
The article introduces Manta Network, a multi-modular ecosystem focusing on zero-knowledge (ZK) applications. It consists of Manta Atlantic, the fastest ZK Layer 1 chain on Polkadot, and Manta Pacific, a community-driven modular Layer 2 platform. Founded to address blockchain shortcomings, Manta Network aims to provide an affordable and user-friendly environment for ZK applications, combating issues like high gas fees and slow performance.
Backed by experienced founders and renowned investors, Manta Network has garnered significant attention in the web3 space. Manta Pacific facilitates easy development and deployment of ZK applications through its Universal Circuits, offering scalability and low transaction fees. Manta Atlantic focuses on ZK compliance credentials and interoperability. The $MANTA token plays various roles, including network usage fees, governance rights, and network security. The article also outlines the token allocation and releasing schedule.
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