What happens when a yield product that already pulled in more than two hundred million dollars on a centralized exchange suddenly becomes available to anyone with a wallet? That is exactly the shift Mantle just made. After proving demand through a CeFi channel, the network has opened a non-custodial version of its real-world asset yield offering inside its own DeFi ecosystem. Stablecoin holders can now deposit without handing keys to an intermediary, and the strategy itself stays visible onchain.
From Exchange Product To Open DeFi Vault
I have watched plenty of yield products launch with flashy numbers only to fade once the incentives dry up. This one feels different, at least in structure. Mantle first rolled out its vault through a major exchange partnership late last year. Users could park USDC or USDT inside the exchange earn section and the funds flowed into Mantle-based strategies. The product crossed the two-hundred-million mark in assets under management. That figure alone convinced the team the model worked. Now they have taken the same core idea and placed it directly onchain.
The new vault lives on Fluxion. Users deposit either USDC or the omnichain version of Tether known as USDT0. They keep control of their assets the entire time. No exchange account sits between them and the strategy. CIAN still designs the conservative, non-leveraged approach. Grove links the vault to yield generated inside the Sky ecosystem. Fluxion simply provides the front-end access. The combination looks tidy on paper, yet the real test will be how depositors behave once the promotional layer ends.
How The Yield Actually Reaches Depositors
At the heart of the product sits sUSDS, the savings version of Sky’s USDS stablecoin. Deposited dollars gain exposure to whatever rate Sky’s governance currently sets. That rate is not locked in for the life of a deposit. It can move up or down through community decisions. Recent figures put the underlying savings rate near three and a half percent when supply sat around four point six billion. Mantle’s own materials advertise a target APY that can reach six and a half percent. The gap between the base rate and the higher headline number comes from additional incentives.
Those incentives include Fluxion Points and a pool of roughly five point one four million GROVE tokens. Neither represents a guaranteed cash return. Their value depends on how the campaign is structured, how many people participate, and what the token trades for later. In my view this is where many depositors will need to stay honest with themselves. The base yield is strategy-generated and relatively transparent. The extra rewards are promotional and therefore temporary by nature.
Grove connects the vault to Sky’s Savings Rate, providing stablecoin deposits exposure to yield generated from diversified, governance-approved strategies.
That description from the team captures the intended flow cleanly. Grove operates inside the Sky ecosystem and routes liquidity into credit strategies through non-custodial infrastructure. CIAN packages everything so positions remain visible on the blockchain. The absence of leverage removes one major liquidation risk. Still, smart-contract risk, stablecoin depeg scenarios, liquidity squeezes, and changes to the governance-set rate all remain on the table.
Why Self-Custody Changes The User Experience
On the exchange version, customers never had to think about gas fees, transaction approvals, or key management. Everything sat behind a familiar interface. The DeFi version flips that convenience. Users interact directly with smart contracts. They approve the necessary permissions and they alone control the private keys. Mantle summed it up simply: same style of construction, except now you keep your keys.
That shift is powerful for people who already live in wallets. It is less convenient for those who prefer the safety of an exchange interface. Self-custody also places full responsibility for key security on the depositor. Lose the seed phrase and the funds are gone regardless of how well the strategy performs. The underlying protocols still carry their own risks. CIAN’s vault design, Fluxion’s interface, Grove’s routing, and Sky’s savings system all need to function as expected.
Supported assets are currently limited to USDC and USDT0. The latter is designed for movement across multiple networks, which makes it different from depositing ordinary USDT. That technical detail matters for users who already hold Tether in various forms and want the smoothest path into the vault.
Mantle’s Broader RWA Momentum This Year
The new vault does not appear in isolation. Mantle has spent 2026 expanding its real-world asset footprint. Network DeFi value locked has moved past the one-billion mark after a strong first half. RWA-focused DeFi TVL alone has climbed above ninety million in some measurements, while earlier snapshots put overall RWA TVL near two hundred fifty-seven million, up sharply from the previous year. Stablecoin market capitalization on the network has approached one billion with triple-digit year-over-year growth.
Tokenized equities have also multiplied. Counts rose from a handful in the spring to more than one hundred fifty by mid-year, including instruments linked to private companies and major equity index products. These tokenized shares do not automatically grant the same rights as the underlying securities. Eligibility rules still depend on the issuer and the user’s jurisdiction. Even so, the sheer increase in available products signals growing interest in bringing traditional assets onchain.
I find the growth numbers interesting because they show demand for yield that feels more grounded than pure speculative farming. People are looking for ways to earn on stablecoins without taking extreme leverage risk. Mantle appears to be positioning itself as a place where that demand can be met with relatively transparent structures.
Understanding The Rate And The Risks
Perhaps the most important point for any potential depositor is that neither the base savings rate nor the advertised vault APY is permanent. Sky’s governance can adjust the rate at any time. Liquidity conditions can shift. Token incentives can be exhausted or reduced. The six-and-a-half-percent target is therefore best treated as an upper bound under current conditions rather than a locked-in return.
Risk factors worth keeping in mind include:
- Smart-contract vulnerabilities in any of the participating protocols
- Possible stablecoin price deviations from the dollar
- Changes to the governance-set savings rate
- Liquidity constraints if large numbers of users exit simultaneously
- Value fluctuations of the promotional token rewards
None of these risks are unique to this particular vault. They appear across most onchain yield products. What is different here is the explicit non-leveraged design and the public visibility of positions. That combination reduces some of the more opaque dangers that plagued earlier yield experiments.
Regulatory Backdrop For Stablecoin Yield
For users in the United States the picture is more complicated. Availability depends on the terms of the access platform, any wallet-level restrictions, and the current state of federal and state rules. A statement that a product is open without geographic limits does not automatically mean every resident can legally participate in every incentive.
Recent legislative discussions have drawn a line between interest paid directly by a payment stablecoin issuer and yield generated through external strategies. Issuers themselves face restrictions on paying interest to holders. Third-party rewards offered by platforms or DeFi protocols remain under active debate. Some proposed language would limit passive yield on simple balances while still allowing activity-based rewards tied to payments or platform use. Mantle and its partners frame the vault return as strategy-generated from sUSDS, with points and tokens presented as separate campaign incentives.
Banking voices have expressed concern that attractive third-party rewards could pull deposits away from traditional accounts. Crypto participants counter that externally generated returns are distinct from issuer-paid interest. The final shape of the rules will matter for how widely these products can be offered and marketed going forward.
Comparing The CeFi And DeFi Experiences
The exchange version offered simplicity and scale. It proved that demand existed for this style of RWA-linked yield. The DeFi version offers transparency and self-custody. Positions and transactions can be inspected onchain. Users never surrender control of their assets to a centralized party. The trade-off is complexity and personal responsibility for security.
In practice many participants may end up using both routes depending on their comfort level and the size of the deposit. Smaller amounts might stay in the more convenient exchange product. Larger or more security-conscious capital may prefer the non-custodial path. The existence of both options is itself a signal that the underlying strategy has already passed a meaningful market test.
What Depositors Should Watch Closely
Anyone considering the new vault should start by examining the current Sky savings rate and the size of the incentive pool. Those two numbers will determine how close the effective return comes to the advertised target. Next comes an assessment of personal key-management habits. Self-custody is only as strong as the practices surrounding it.
It is also worth monitoring how quickly assets flow into the DeFi version. Rapid growth can be a positive sign of confidence, yet it can also create temporary liquidity pressure if many users later decide to exit at the same moment. Finally, keep an eye on any governance proposals inside the Sky ecosystem that might alter the underlying rate or strategy parameters.
I have seen too many people treat advertised APYs as fixed promises. They rarely are. Treating the base strategy yield as the primary return and viewing the points and tokens as optional upside produces a more realistic picture. That mindset also makes it easier to decide when the risk-reward balance no longer feels attractive.
The Larger Trend Toward Transparent RWA Yield
Mantle’s move fits a broader pattern visible across the industry. Tokenized real-world assets continue to attract capital looking for yields that feel more anchored than pure crypto-native farming. At the same time, users who already operate in DeFi want the ability to access those yields without returning to centralized custodians. Products that can satisfy both preferences stand a better chance of lasting beyond the current incentive cycle.
The network’s rising DeFi TVL and expanding menu of tokenized equities suggest that infrastructure for this kind of activity is maturing. Whether the specific vault becomes a long-term fixture will depend on consistent performance, clear communication around rate changes, and the ability to keep smart-contract risk under control. Those are ordinary requirements, yet they are the ones that separate durable products from short-lived experiments.
In the end the story is straightforward. A yield product that already demonstrated demand in a centralized setting has now been made available in a non-custodial form. The mechanics rely on established pieces of infrastructure inside the Sky ecosystem. The risks are real and mostly familiar. The potential return sits in a range that looks competitive for stablecoin strategies that avoid leverage. For users who understand those parameters and who are comfortable managing their own keys, the new vault offers a concrete way to put idle stablecoins to work while remaining fully onchain.
Whether that combination proves sticky enough to grow beyond the current campaign will become clearer in the months ahead. For now the door is open, the strategy is public, and the choice sits with individual depositors.
