MANTA Airdrop Leaves DeFi Community Fuming

Manta Network, Ethereum’s third largest Layer 2 with $885M in total value locked, launched its native MANTA token today.

The token is trading at $2.12 at the time of writing, giving the much-hyped project a fully diluted valuation of $2.1B, according to CoinGecko. The token is currently ranked 117th by market capitalization.

Manta allocated 30M tokens – 3% of the total supply – toward an airdrop for early users of the network.

Most DeFi users are disappointed by the airdrop, however.

“Manta New Paradigm is the most disappointing airdrop of the year,” JayXBT, a crypto content creator, posted on X. “I deposited 1 ETH, and my team deposited 2.5 ETH total [and] all I get is 26 $MANTA currently valued at $65.”

“Manta Network farmed users rather than the users farmin manta lmfao,” wrote crypto trader MK.

Others, like DeFi Dad, are reporting that they’re unable to bridge assets back from Manta’s L2.

Points System

The 30M tokens airdropped today were based on a points system built around tasks users completed on Manta’s Layer 2, known as Manta Pacific. Points systems, popularized by NFT marketplace Blur, have changed the airdrop game in that criteria for eligibility have become more predictable.

Before points, users would not know the requisite steps to become eligible for a particular airdrop. Now certain behaviors, like bridging, using DeFi protocols, or owning certain NFTs, are awarded points, which typically lead to a corresponding amount of tokens later.

How the points will translate into tokens usually remains unknown until an airdrop goes live, sometimes resulting in the sort of disappointment voiced by members of the crypto community today.

Manta Network is currently composed of two separate networks. The flagship chain is Manta Pacific. The other, called Manta Atlantic, is a Layer 1 chain built on Polkadot. Manta bills itself as a multi-modular ecosystem for zero-knowledge applications, according to its documentation.

Manta Pacific was the first L2 to use Celestia, which provides data availability to other crypto networks. Celestia had a major airdrop itself last year.

Despite the project’s high rank in terms of TVL, Manta Pacific trails other L2s in terms of activity. The network is processing less than three transactions per second (TPS), while other L2s like Arbitrum and zkSync Era are averaging over 9 and 14 TPS, respectively, according to L2BEAT.

MANTA will be used to govern the Manta ecosystem, according to a press release shared with The Defiant. On Manta Pacific, holders will save on gas and benefit from sequencer revenue, among other benefits.

Another 2% of the MANTA supply will be airdropped to users and contributors to the ecosystem, according to a document outlining the airdrop’s mechanics.