Messari has released its State of Mantle Q4 2025 report, providing an in-depth analysis of Mantle’s network design, treasury strategy, and ecosystem development as the protocol advances its role as a coordinated distribution layer for institutional onchain finance.
The report examines Mantle’s transition toward active capital deployment, exchange-led distribution, and institutional-grade infrastructure spanning real-world assets (RWAs), DeFi, and treasury-backed yield products.
Activating Treasury Capital to Anchor Onchain Liquidity
Messari highlights Mantle’s $4.2 billion community-owned treasury, one of the largest in the industry, as a central pillar of its distribution strategy. In Q4 2025, Mantle shifted from passive treasury management toward active capital deployment, executing a proposal to migrate previously idle assets into Mantle Index Four (MI4), its institutional crypto index fund.
This deployment drove a 37.3% quarter-over-quarter increase in DeFi TVL, lifting Mantle’s onchain TVL from $242.3 million to $332.7 million by quarter end. As of December 31, 2025, MI4 managed approximately $173 million in assets, delivering a 27.9% year-to-date return, underscoring Mantle’s approach to treasury-backed, yield-bearing liquidity.
Exchange-Led Distribution and Infrastructure Alignment
The report underscores Mantle’s deepening integration with Bybit, where MNT functions as a core platform asset across trading, fee payments, VIP programs, and institutional products. While onchain activity moderated in Q4 following Q3’s incentive-driven expansion, Messari positions exchange-led distribution as a long-term structural advantage rather than a short-term growth lever.
Bybit’s role as a distribution partner continues to anchor Mantle’s liquidity chain, connecting centralized exchange liquidity with onchain yield strategies, stablecoin settlement, and institutional access points across the Mantle ecosystem.
Institutional Stack Expansion Across RWAs and DeFi
Messari highlights Mantle’s growing institutional stack, particularly its focus on RWA and compliant onchain infrastructure. Mantle’s Tokenization-as-a-Service (TaaS) platform supports end-to-end RWA issuance, enabling institutional participation through products such as Ondo Finance’s USDY, which reached approximately $29 million tokenized on Mantle.
In Q4 2025, Mantle also expanded its RWA ecosystem through integrations including USDT0 for stablecoin settlement, a co-announcement with Bybit for the deployment of xStocks to support tokenized equities, and the deployment of QCDT, a regulated yield-bearing RWA product. These initiatives reinforce Mantle’s positioning as infrastructure for compliant, institutional-scale onchain finance.
“Institutions don’t adopt isolated execution layers; they adopt ecosystems that coordinate capital, liquidity, and distribution,” said Emily, Key Advisor at Mantle. “In Q4, Mantle focused on activating treasury capital and strengthening institutional-grade infrastructure, rather than pursuing short-term, incentive-driven activity.”
“Mantle’s Q4 performance reflects a broader shift among Layer 2s toward coordinating capital, applications, and distribution rather than optimizing execution in isolation,” said Evan Zakhary, Protocol Research Analyst at Messari. “The quarter was defined by treasury-backed TVL growth and normalization in onchain activity following earlier exchange-led expansion.”
Positioning Mantle as a Distribution Layer for Onchain Finance
Messari’s Q4 analysis positions Mantle as a Layer 2 evolving beyond execution into a distribution layer that coordinates capital, infrastructure, and access across CeFi and DeFi. Despite a broader market drawdown in Q4, Mantle closed the year with one of the largest treasuries in crypto, rising institutional participation, and a growing suite of yield-generating products backed by active DAO capital deployment.
As Mantle continues to deepen exchange integration, expand its RWA ecosystem, and deploy treasury assets into productive onchain strategies, Messari frames the protocol as increasingly defined by its role in enabling institutional onchain finance at scale.
