Mantle's "escape": From the OP Rollup faction to the ZK faction

Author: Haotian; Source: X, @tmel0211

A few months ago, @0xMantleCN completed a technical upgrade from OP Rollup to ZK Validium + EigenDA. Not only did the cost approach the performance of OP, but crucially, the 7-day finality was reduced to within 1 hour. Sounds unremarkable, right? But what if we say this is Mantle's "escape" from the OP Rollup camp? Does that pique your interest?

Why do we say that?

1) Mantle has transformed from a chain providing liquidity economic incentives for Multi-layer2 to an institutional-grade RWA financial infrastructure service based on Bybit off-chain yields.

Previously, Mantle provided liquidity intermediaries for Layer 2 blockchains, attracting liquidity from multiple chains through mETH staking rewards. Now, its new institutional-grade services include xStocks' US stock tokenization service, among others. In short, both rely on capital flow efficiency and institutional funding. However, the technical security guarantees of the past OP Rollup's 7-day optimistic verification and Fraud Proof are clearly problematic. After all, the "security" of Fraud Proof is based on the optimistic assumption of no malicious behavior and post-event penalties, adhering to a "get on board first, deal with problems later" logic. This could barely sustain a small Layer 2 ecosystem with tens of millions of TVL and hundreds of millions of dollars in the past, but with the full influx of institutional funds driven by compliance requirements, this logic is untenable. How can you convince institutions like BlackRock and Fidelity to tolerate the 7-day security assumption? Are you kidding me? 2) If the reason for sacrificing capital flow efficiency in the past when using OP Rollups was to save money, then with the reduction in ZK proof costs and the maturity of combined economic verification models such as EigenDA, this reason for "saving money" no longer holds water. Previously, choosing OP over ZK proofs was simply because ZK technology was immature and too expensive. However, with ZK proof services such as RISC Zero and Succinct compressing proof costs to below $0.002, even lower than the overall cost of OP Rollups, ZK Rollups have overturned the OP Rollup table. Moreover, EigenDA, through off-chain data availability + AVS re-staking economic security model, has further compressed DA costs to 1/10 of a normal Ethereum L1 Blob. Thus, Mantle, combining ZK Validium and EigenDA, boasts lower gas costs, faster transaction speeds, and a reduced security finality time from 7 days to within 1 hour. This represents a complete leap forward from the original OP era. While the idea that ZK Rollups represent the endgame of layer 2 was initially clear, the maturation of ZK proof technology and various DA economic verification models has challenged the technological advantages of OP-based chains. For OP layer 2 chains that still adhere to the layer 2 ecosystem and rely on mass adoption for widespread application adoption, such as Arbitrum and Base, the impact is not significant. However, for financially oriented chains like Mantle that embrace institutions, transformation is urgently needed.