Hey folks, as $ETH is once again hitting a local bottom and if you’re refusing to sell (like me), it’s times like these where I fully intend to sit on my positions and riding things out at least until the we actually start seeing some in-flows into Ethereum ETFs. Last month I spoke about rolling over assets into Linea’s Surge, but with $ETH specifically, starting this month, the number one place where I’m looking is Mantle — a blazing fast Ethereum L2 supported by Eigenlayer’s DA. If you’ve never used Mantle before, once you do you’ll probably understand why in a field where new L2s are popping up everyday, Mantle is still able to maintain consistently high growth:
I’ve written about Mantle several times before, but recently as of July 1st, Mantle has announced the start of a 100-day re-staking campaign known as “ metamorphosis” which during Season 1, will allow $mETH holders to be able to earn “Powder” points, which will one day be redeemable for $COOK. As part of their Methamorphosis announcement, they’ve announced several dozen strategies on both Mantle and Ethereum mainnet where you can earn Powder points on different protocols at different rates:
Apart from the gimmicky Breaking Bad theme, the $COOK token once released will most likely look similar to $LDO, which is the native governance token for Lido and their $stETH. I’m not certain about how profitable or unprofitable $COOK itself may be, but as I’ll break down in this article, because $mETH has become so highly integrated, there are several places to triple or even quadruple your potential returns. But before we get started, if you haven’t joined Methamorphosis already, be sure to join via a referral code in order to earn an extra 10% on your Powder points. Here’s mine: https://meth.mantle.xyz/campaigns/methamorphosis/MWCryptos
So what are the best places to park your $mETH/$ETH? Let’s dive in shall we?
A platform that I’ve personally used for quite some time, Minterest is by volume Mantle’s largest lending/borrowing protocol, where you can currently supply $mETH and quadruple dip — $ETH staking yield, yield for supplying (in $mETH/$MNT/$MINTY), $EIGEN points, as well as 20x Powder points:
A note worth mentioning — although it’s been listed on Gecko Terminal, Minterest’s native token $MINTY isn’t liquid and claimable, despite the website saying that it would be tradeable early 2024.
Another lending/borrowing protocol is Init, which similar to Minterest, you can earn both $EIGEN and 20x Powder points. However unlike Minterest, Init has yet to release their own native $INIT token, but you can accrue points for a future drop by either depositing or borrowing on their platform , currently at a rate of 1 point/$100/24hr, Borrow = 5 points/$100/24hr.
In addition to simple lending/borrowing, Init also has a “Looping Hook” feature that allows you to leverage up your points by 5x, albeit at the cost of a -14.50 % APY from borrowing.
And on a final note, in case if you’re wondering how much $INIT points might be worth, their seed investment round earlier this year racked up $3.1 million dollars in funding, including names like Bankless and Maelstrom (Arthur Hayes’ family office):
Another lending protocol that has significantly lower TVL (yet potentially higher upside) is Dolomite. Similar to Init, by single-side lending $mETH on Dolomite you can currently earn native $ETH staking yield, $EIGEN points, 20x Powder points, and also Minerals, which is part of Dolomite’s point system until they have a TGE:
To compare its relative size, Dolomite’s TVL on Mantle is right around $5 million dollars, whereas Init’s TVL is well over $100 million dollars. However farming on Dolomite may be significantly more profitable since lending 1 $mETH would earn you 2,500 minerals over the course of one week — a number that would put you in the top 750th place on the leaderboard:
A chapter of the Byte Masons crew’s Oath ecosystem, Aurelius is another lending/borrowing platform where you can currently earn both Salt points (the precursor to Aurelius’ future $AU token) and 20x Powder points for lending $mETH:
To note, the campaign to earn AU is in it’s final season, but as of right now, you can earn points with a 10x multiplier until the campaign’s end:
I’ve written about Zircuit in my article “ Top Places to Move your LRTs”, and although $mETH technically isn’t an LRT, you can also deposit $mETH to double dip on your Zircuit while at the same time earning more Powder:
Being it’s own layer 2, Zircuit is by far the biggest in TVL on this list, with $2.3 billion in total value re-staked at time of writing, yet the only strategy on this list that requires your $mETH to be on Ethereum mainnet in order to deposit (as opposed to being able to deposit directly on Mantle). To note, the earning rate on Powder via Zircuit is only 5x, but I believe that this is offset by the potential value that Zircuit might offer with a token drop.
A smaller TVL L2 that does accept $mETH on Mantle is Karak — an Eigenlayer competitor that is able to accept anything on the the ERC-20 standard, not only LRTs. Karak is also heavily backed by some major players including Coinbase Ventures and Pantera Capital, with a whopping total raise of $48 million dollars.
Before you stake, it’s important to note that there is a 7-day unstaking period (which may seem bad but it’s the same as Eigenlayer), and also be sure to stake via Mantle and NOT Ethereum mainnet. If you stake via mainnet you will incidentally only earn 5x Powder points instead of the full 20x.
And lastly, Karak is still early access invite only and requires an invite code — a code which you can probably get off of their discord. (You’re more than welcome to use mine as long as they last: bB9S7, C1sqj, ZPe3O, njSad, nAHnd.)
Last but not least we have providing liquidity to Merchant Moe’s $mETH-$USDT pool, which currently earns not only triple-digit APRs, but also insanely high (40x) Powder points for the entire value of the LP, not just the $mETH portion of it. To note, Merchant Moe actually has 2 different LPs that will accrue the 40x powder with high APRs, the other being the $mETH-$USDe pool as seen below:
However given that the liquidity size of the $USDe pool is only at $2150, I can’t imagine that the rates will stay that high for very long. Additionally, if you’re unfamiliar with liquidity pools, the biggest risk with this strategy is that you’ll be encountering Impermanent Loss — you’ll only get part of the upside (or downside) of the price action on $mETH when it moves in contrast against the dollar.
We’re still extremely early in the methamorphosis campaign, and I imagine that there will be more strategies announced/released as time goes on. Mantle in general ceases to amaze me as it’s one of the cheapest and fastest L2s out there hellbent on focusing on optimizing maximum yield accrual on your $ETH returns.
Are there any better strategies that you think I’ve left off my list? Let me know about it in the comments below. Also, once again if you haven’t yet signed up for the Methamorphisis campaign, consider supporting my blog by using my referral code MWCryptos in order to earn an extra 10% on your Powder points.
And as always, thanks for taking the time to read this and be sure to follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/CryptosWith) to get all my latest updates. Also, looking for a gift for your Crypto-loving/hating friend? Give them a REKT journal to cheer them up!
Disclaimer: And as a final reminder, this is not financial advice and this is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please as always, do your own research and find what investments are best for you. Cheers everyone!
