Mantle ($MNT) climbed 4.6% to $1.07 as Layer 2 tokens gain traction, but faces a tough battle at a key resistance. The Ethereum scaling solution is riding the momentum from major partnerships and its growing ecosystem.
While short-term technicals show some indecision, the project continues to make strategic moves that could strengthen its position long-term.
Central to Mantle’s momentum is its position as a leading Ethereum Layer-2 (L2) solution. Mantle is the first L2 to partner with EigenLayer, an ETH restaking protocol, for its data-availability module.
This technological foundation supports Mantle’s vision as a pioneering on-chain ecosystem, dedicated to transforming finance and blockchain scalability by bridging TradFi and DeFi.
Mantle’s ecosystem includes innovative products such as the Mantle Network itself, the mETH Protocol, Function (FBTC), and the Mantle Index Four (MI4), reshaping how people spend, save, and invest in the emerging Web 3.0 era.
Institutional interest is also on the rise. For instance, Bybit co-founder Ben Zhou recently outlined plans for deeper integration between Bybit and Mantle Network, focusing on infrastructure scaling and ecosystem collaboration. This comes shortly after Pendle (PENDLE), a DeFi protocol built on Mantle, re-entered DefiLlama’s TVL top 10, showing the network’s growing relevance.
Mantle’s recent rally mirrors sector rotations seen across the crypto market.
Altcoins, such as Stellar ($XLM), have soared as Bitcoin’s dominance has fallen to 60.01%. Unlike many of its peers, which are driven mostly by speculation, Mantle’s rally is supported by solid fundamentals, including its leading position in L2 activity with a TVL of $242.65 million.
Regarding its future ambitions, Q3 2025 could be pivotal for the network.
Mantle plans to roll out Mantle Banking, a crypto neobank bridging fiat and DeFi, along with the recently announced $400 million MI4 tokenized fund, backed by Mantle’s treasury.
The MI4 fund will offer exposure to $BTC, $ETH, $SOL, and stablecoins with enhanced yield strategies. If adoption picks up, $MNT could gain utility as a governance and staking token, while also attracting fresh institutional capital.
Mantle’s recent rally, which began after a prolonged downtrend through late July and early August, took the asset’s price from the $0.66 range into the $1.06 area in an explosive sequence of higher highs and higher lows.
The key acceleration occurred on August 4-5, when large green candles, backed by expanding buy volume, broke through both the 50-period SMA at $0.9687 and the 100-period SMA at $0.9179.
These moving averages have since shifted upward, confirming the break in market structure and establishing a stronger support base beneath current price action.
However, the steep ascent carved out a rising wedge pattern near $1.10 region, a formation that often indicates waning upside momentum.
Meanwhile, the volume footprint from the 30-minute chart provides deeper insight into this reversal.
While early buying during the push into the $1.06-$1.07 range showed positive deltas, the footprint shows two key moments where selling pressure dominated.
That’s at one cluster with a -25.95K delta and another with a -47.62K delta. Both clusters occur near short-term highs, which could indicate that sellers used the rally to offload positions into strength, effectively capping further gains.
Earlier intraday swings also revealed pockets of absorption, such as the strong +35.39K delta at $1.06, where buyers initially defended, but the follow-through was not strong enough. The result was a shift from buyer-led imbalances to consistent sell-heavy prints, gradually forcing the price lower into the wedge breakdown zone.
The broader context now has Mantle holding above its 20-period SMA ($1.0833), but the slope has flattened, showing a potential shift toward sideways trade. If bulls can defend the $1.02-$1.03 support band, a reattempt at $1.06 is possible.
