7 Days on Mantle: From 'Hello World' to a Full-Stack RWA dApp

Source: Dev.to

Introduction: The Shift to Layer 2

It’s been exactly one week since I kicked off the HackQuest Indonesia Co-Learning Camp 6: Mantle Edition. Coming fresh off the Ethereum track, the transition to Mantle Network felt like a natural evolution.

This week wasn’t just about learning new syntax; it was about understanding scalability and building production‑ready applications on a high‑performance modular L2.

Here is a retrospective of my first 7 days.

Days 1‑3: Foundation & Speed

The journey began by revisiting the Blockchain Trilemma. Understanding why we need L2s—to solve the scalability constraint without sacrificing security—set the stage for the rest of the week.

• Day 2: Deployed my first contract on Mantle Sepolia. The difference was immediate—negligible gas fees and instant confirmations compared to L1.
• Day 3: Solidified my Solidity fundamentals, ensuring logic flows and data structures were airtight before tackling the main project.

Days 4‑6: Building “EduLoan” (The RWA Case Study)

The core of Week 1 was building a decentralized student loan system, a perfect use case for the current real‑world asset (RWA) narrative.

Key engineering standards applied

• Gas Optimization: Implemented custom errors, saving ~90 % gas on reverts compared to traditional string messages.
• Security: Used pull‑over‑push patterns and reentrancy guards to secure funds.
• Testing: Utilized Foundry to write a comprehensive test suite, achieving a 100 % pass rate (13/13 tests) covering all edge cases.

Day 6: Integrated the smart contract with a React frontend and deployed the full‑stack dApp to Vercel. The UI interacted seamlessly with the blockchain, handling loan applications and approvals in real time.

Live Demo:

Source Code:

Day 7: The Macro View

Spent the day researching Mantle’s specific strategy for RWAs. Learning how they leverage their massive treasury to support deep liquidity and assets like $USDY highlighted that Mantle isn’t just a fast chain—it’s building a sustainable yield ecosystem.

Reflection

The biggest takeaway is the power of the right tooling. Using Foundry for testing gave me far more confidence in my smart contract security than previous frameworks.

Building EduLoan proved that with the right L2 infrastructure, we can create complex, real‑world financial tools that are cheap, fast, and usable for end users.

Week 1 is done. The foundation is set. Ready for Week 2.