Mantle community members have given the green light to the formation of an Economics Committee that will be responsible for managing the layer 2 blockchain’s massive $4.2 billion treasury. The majority of the funds are held in MNT, the governance token for Mantle, with an additional $300 million in stablecoins USDC and USDT.
The vote to create the governing body comes shortly after Mantle launched its mainnet technology stack for scaling Ethereum. The network has a total value locked (TVL) of $40.73 million, according to DefiLlama, making it smaller than competitors Arbitrum and Optimism, which have $1.9 billion and $874 million, respectively.
The governance proposal also authorizes Mantle LSD and an ether (ETH) staking strategy in collaboration with Lido. Mantle LSD is a liquid staking protocol where users can deposit ETH in exchange for mntETH, a liquid staking token. Additionally, the proposal includes allocating 40,000 ETH from Mantle treasury to stETH as a way “to bootstrap DEX liquidity and integrations across Mantle,” said Lido contributor “Seraphim,” in a forum discussion. Mantle’s treasury currently holds more than 264,000 ETH, according to its website.