Mantle (mETH): liquid staking rating breakdown
Among the more candid documents in the sector — Mantle tells you, in writing, that a withdrawal "could take 40+ days", which is a rare piece of honesty. And its built-in withdrawal delay is the only reason $43m was recovered from the Bybit hacker in February 2025: the delay everybody treats as a UX defect is what saved the supply.
Among the more candid documents in the sector — Mantle tells you, in writing, that a withdrawal "could take 40+ days", which is a rare piece of honesty. And its built-in withdrawal delay is the only reason $43m was recovered from the Bybit hacker in February 2025: the delay everybody treats as a UX defect is what saved the supply.
How the score is built
Each criterion is scored 0–10 and weighted. The median column is the middle score across every entry in this ranking, so a row reads as a position rather than a number.
| Criterion | What we measured | Weight | Score | Category median | Rank | Weighted gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Is “liquid” actually true? | ~0.15% exit depth vs token size · sourced · 2026-07-15 · source | 35% | 3 | 4.5 | 9 of 12 | -0.53 |
| Do they tell you what they take? | 0.04% fee on principal at deposit · published · 2026-07-15 · source | 25% | 7 | 6 | 4 of 12 | +0.25 |
| Net yield against the real ceiling | — | 20% | 7 | 8 | 10 of 12 | -0.20 |
| Custody and slashing | — | 12% | 7 | 8 | 8 of 12 | -0.12 |
| Restaking risk, disclosed | — | 8% | 10 | 10 | 1 of 12 | 0.00 |
Measured 15 July 2026 · weights and method · decided by is “liquid” actually true?, worth -0.53 points against the median
Is “liquid” actually true?: 3/10
The question every comparison omits, and the one that has actually cost people money. We take the token’s outstanding value and set it against the depth genuinely available to sell into — on-chain pools, and daily turnover. The ratios are brutal: a token with a billion dollars outstanding and two million dollars of exit is not liquid, it is a building with an emergency exit sized for one person. Backing does not save you. Depth does.
Scored 3 of 10 against a category median of 4.5, which places it 9th of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 35% weight that is 0.53 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 2.
Do they tell you what they take?: 7/10
Not the fee percentage — whether the yield they SHOW you is the yield you GET. Some publish the formula and hand you the raw numbers to check. Others advertise a rate that explicitly excludes their commission, and say so only in a support article nobody reads. And the worst simply state a number and never mention a take rate at all, which we then have to derive by dividing.
Scored 7 of 10 against a category median of 6, which places it 4th of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 25% weight that is 0.25 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 3.
Net yield against the real ceiling: 7/10
Measured against the gross rate the network actually pays, which we derive rather than accept: the protocol APR, before anyone’s cut. Every token is scored on how much of that it gives back to you.
Scored 7 of 10 against a category median of 8, which places it 10th of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 20% weight that is 0.20 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 7.
Custody and slashing: 7/10
Do you hold an asset or an IOU? And when a validator is slashed, what actually covers it — a contractual claim you own, a fund of undisclosed size, or a discretionary vote by token-holders? Note that Solana has no protocol slashing at all, which is a real structural advantage its LSTs are never given credit for.
Scored 7 of 10 against a category median of 8, which places it 8th of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 12% weight that is 0.12 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 7.
Restaking risk, disclosed: 10/10
A liquid staking token must not quietly become a restaked one. We check whether the product takes on EigenLayer-style obligations, and whether that extra risk is quantified anywhere for the holder. A plain LST scores full marks here by simply not doing it.
Scored 10 of 10 against a category median of 10, which places it 1st of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 8% weight that is exactly level with the median of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 10.
Other measurements
Its nearest neighbours in this ranking
| # | Entry | Is “liquid” actually true? | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Frax Ether (frxETH / sfrxETH) | 5 | Ahead by 2 on is “liquid” actually true?. |
| 8 | Jupiter (jupSOL) | 3 | Level on is “liquid” actually true?; the gap is elsewhere. |
| 10 | Liquid Collective (LsETH) | 4 | Ahead by 1 on is “liquid” actually true?. |
| 11 | Stader (ETHx) | 2 | Behind by 1 on is “liquid” actually true?. |
Questions about this score
Why does mETH take so long to withdraw?
+
The protocol builds in a redemption delay, disclosed in its own documentation as potentially forty days or more. It is the honest number, and it is also a security property: during the Bybit hack the delay prevented roughly $43m of stolen mETH from being exited before it was frozen, which is the only reason recovery was possible.