First published 20 July 2023, the week the rollup opened to the public. Expanded in October 2026 so Mantle is not described as Ethereum with a cheaper fee, and so BIT is not described as a ticker that renamed itself. Mantle is an optimistic rollup. Transactions execute on Mantle. Ethereum is where the record is anchored. MNT is the native coin: it pays the fee on Mantle, and it is the governance token of the project that came out of BitDAO. Chain id 5000 is Mantle. Chain id 1 is Ethereum. A wallet that shows both as 0x addresses has not made them the same notebook.
Ethereum without the jargon is the chain underneath. A bridge is extra software, not a tunnel. This page is the coin, and the two places it lives.
From BIT to MNT
BitDAO was a treasury and a governance token, BIT, that funded the network. In May 2023 token holders passed a proposal to fold the DAO and the network into one brand, Mantle. On 17 July 2023 the mainnet alpha opened, and a conversion tool let people turn BIT into MNT at one for one. The conversion was a transaction. It did not rewrite every BIT balance overnight. BIT that you did not convert is not MNT. A site that offers a new conversion rate, or asks for a recovery phrase to “finish the merge”, is not that tool.
The treasury that came across is the project’s treasury. A large treasury is not your balance, and a figure quoted at the merge is not the treasury today. Spending it is a governance act. It is not a dividend.
Gas on Mantle, ETH on the way in and out
On Mantle you pay fees in MNT. Depositing from Ethereum costs ETH, because that transaction is an Ethereum transaction. Starting a withdrawal costs MNT on Mantle. Claiming the funds back on Ethereum costs ETH again. An optimistic rollup makes the withdrawal wait through a challenge window before it can be claimed. The length of that window is a parameter on the bridge you are using. Read the screen. A bridge is extra software, not a tunnel.
MNT on Ethereum is an ERC-20. MNT on Mantle is the native coin. They can be the same ticker in a portfolio app and still be stranded if you pick the wrong network. The wrong network is still the wrong city. Nothing here is an instruction to bridge, convert, or buy MNT.
