"Interview with Dongqu": Manta founder Kenny: L2 is dead! Abandoning the L2 ecosystem to create real application scenarios for users, rather than dream bubbles!

Manta Network once dominated L2 with a TVL of $2 billion, and now founder Kenny Li announced that “L2 is dead,” abandoning the infrastructure red sea and shifting to launch killer applications like Junk Fun on popular chains such as Solana and BNB Chain, actively bringing value back to the Manta ecosystem and initiating a reversal strategy of “application first.” (Background summary: Exclusive Interview with 0G founder Michael: The risk of centralized AI monopoly and how decentralized AI can solve the “Terminator” dilemma.) (Supplementary background: Exclusive Interview with blockchain YouTuber Brain哥 discussing the “newbie turnaround history” and whether copy trading can actually be profitable in the market.) Introduction: Once boasting a TVL of $2 billion, the modular L2 star Manta Network is now undergoing a profound “self-revolution.” Faced with the brutal competition of nearly 500 L2s, co-founder Kenny Li frankly stated that the path of pure infrastructure has become unsustainable. Manta is transforming from an L2 platform into an “application-centric” ecosystem, no longer waiting for users to come but actively launching its killer applications in user hotspots like Solana and BNB Chain. This is a bold strategic shift. In this exclusive interview, “動區” dives deep into the reasons behind this difficult decision made by Manta co-founder Kenny, how they plan to achieve this through applications like Junk Fun and Super Fortune, and where the Manta ecosystem is headed in the future. Manta Network's L2 transformation and App-Centric strategy 动区: Hi Kenny! Manta Network recently announced it will no longer focus on pure L2 infrastructure and will transition to an “application-centric” strategy. As a co-founder, can you share the key reasons behind this significant decision? Kenny: This is a difficult but necessary decision. When we first launched Manta Pacific, there were only about 4 L2s in the market, and we easily stood out with our modularity and low gas fees, quickly growing our TVL to $2 billion. That was our golden age. Fast forward to 2025, and there are now nearly 500 L2s in the market. The technology itself is rapidly commoditized, and the differences are shrinking. I like to compare it to commercial real estate after the pandemic; there are too many vacant buildings, but the actual occupancy rate is very low. We see L2s are similar—where are the users? They are all on Solana, Base, and BNB Chain. Unless you have unlimited funds and a traffic entrance like Coinbase, competing is nearly impossible. Facing this reality, we had two choices: either stay on this path and “tread water” or choose to transform. We chose the latter. This is not our first transformation; last time we transitioned from Polkadot L1 to Ethereum L2, achieving great success. Now, we believe that “application first” is the correct path for Manta to continue surviving and developing. 动区: Base is also an L2, but it has managed to stand out in the market. What do you think is the key? Is it just because it is backed by Coinbase? Kenny: You are correct that Base's success is largely due to the support of Coinbase. When you think of top exchanges, after Binance, the next is Coinbase, especially in the Western market, where it holds absolute leadership. Having a top-tier exchange behind you not only means huge traffic and brand endorsement but, more importantly, it brings very practical incentives for the project party—listing expectations. Deploying projects on Base means you are closer to the core team of Coinbase, which is a huge attraction for any project. This is an advantage that other L2s cannot provide. Of course, Mantle is backed by Bybit, but there is still a significant gap in scale between Bybit and Coinbase. 动区: So how does Manta's “application-centric” new strategy work specifically? How does it create value for Manta Network and token holders? Kenny: Our core idea is: no longer trying to force users to move to our chain but bringing applications directly to them. In the past, many infrastructure projects wanted to do exclusive applications on their own chains to attract users to cross-chain, but this is a highly frictional process where users need to transfer assets and learn a new ecosystem, which is very troublesome. Our approach is to directly launch our applications in the places with the most users—like BNB Chain and Solana. The benefit of this approach is that we can see great success from day one. For example, Junk Fun gained 15,000 daily active users on its launch day, which would be nearly impossible to achieve on the Manta chain. So how does this benefit the users in the Manta ecosystem? The answer is value return. All the revenue generated by these successful applications in external ecosystems will flow back to Manta's ecosystem. For instance, Junk Fun demonstrated a potential annual revenue of nearly $10 million on its first day, and this funding will be used for token buybacks and burns, increasing APY rewards for Manta stakers, and providing additional incentives for the Manta community, etc. We are capturing users and revenue from multiple chains and concentrating all benefits back to Manta's core community. Manta Market Strategy and Industry Outlook 动区: Speaking of Meme coins, your recently launched Junk Fun is very interesting. Can you share more about the original intention and mechanism of this project? Now you are primarily focused on the Solana ecosystem; will you expand to other Meme coin strongholds like Base or BNB Chain in the future? Kenny: The idea behind Junk Fun is very simple: we found that users don’t want to spend money, but their wallets are full of countless dead Meme coins. Why not find some fun for these “garbage”? Junk.Fun cleverly utilizes Solana's “rent (rent)” mechanism. On Solana, for every new token you hold, the wallet needs to pay about 0.002 SOL (about 20-40 cents) as rent as a deposit. Most people don’t know that when you remove these tokens, this money can be refunded. Junk Fun automatically helps users recover this “deposit” and uses this small amount of money to participate in our games, which can win greater rewards. This mechanism is very clever because it has very low cost and low risk. Users don’t need to invest real money; they are just utilizing assets that have already been forgotten. Many users have given us feedback saying, “Thank you, I finally have a way to clean up my wallet!” Regarding expansion, we completely agree with your observation. The hotspots for Meme coins are constantly shifting, from Solana to BNB Chain, and then to Base. We…