Manta Pacific (Manta L2) is the fastest growing layer 2

Manta Pacific is an Ethereum scaling solution. It launched mainnet on Sep 12, 2023.

Between September 2023 and February 2024, Manta Network layer 2’s TVL went from $0 to $545 million. This is just a period of 7 months.

Total value locked of layer 2 blockchains.

Arbitrum $2.981 billion

Polygon $960 million.

Optimism $869 million.

Manta $545 million.

Base $398 million.

zkSync Era $150 million.

Starknet $74 million.

defillama.com/chain/Manta

Manta Pacific is the fastest growing layer 2. LayerBank, a lending and borrowing platform is the fastest growing dApp on Manta Pacific. It currently has $409 million TVL.

Manta Network used blockchain development tools to develop its layer 2 called Manta Pacific. Although Manta Network team does not write blockchain codes from the ground up.

However, Manta development team tries to pick to best technology from blockchain development tools. Manta Pacific (Manta L2) built using Polygon CDK (the Polygon Chain Development Kit) that build layer 2 using zkEVM technology.

Manta Pacific claims that it offers cheaper transaction fees compare to other layer 2 networks because instead of using data availability on Ethereum mainnet, it uses Celestia’s data availability. Celestia is a data availability provider.

Understanding data availability

A blockchain transaction consists of 4 layers including

Execution layer

It imposes programming language that build on top of a blockchain such as Ethereum Virtual Machine, Solana Virtual Machine, or Arbitrum VM.

Or it tells what blockchain development tool a particular blockchain builds on such as OP Stack, Cosmos SDK, and Polygon CDK.

Consensus layer

It is a mechanism to create new blocks and confirm transactions such as Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake.

Data availability layer

Data availability means applications or validators post data on blocks. It is data that available for downloading to verify the transactions such as a validator node posted data of Alice transferred 5 ETH to Bob.

Settlement layer

It adds transaction data into the blockchain. Settlement layers ensures the transaction cannot be rolled back when the transaction is completed.

Building on Celestia, Developers that build rollups and blockchains work on execution and settlement layers. While, Celestia is responsible for consensus and data availability layers.

There are also other data availability providers including EigerLayer, NEAR Protocol, and Avail. These data availability providers try to make the cost of transactions cheaper.

Average transaction fees of layer 2 on Feb 22, 2024.

Starknet $1.88 (1 STRK) per transaction.

Optimism $1.63 (0.43 OP) per transaction.

Arbitrum One $1.34 (0.72 ARB) per transaction.

Manta $0.6 (0.19 MANTA) per transaction.

Manta Pacific and MANTA token are layer 2 network and layer 2 token that you should keep an eye on. MANTA is a governance and a utility token of Manta Pacific (Manta L2).