Emergency Crypto Update, What Happened With Mantra $OM?

Waking up to see a 90% crash of a crypto project is no fun.Especially if we’re talking about one of the top RWA projects. Because that’s exactly what happened. Mantra ($OM) went down 87%. As a result, it dropped out of the top 10 for RWA projects.

Its market cap went from $6+ billion to $750,000. $6 billion gone in under one hour. So, it should come as no surprise that the calls of a rug are loud on X. Comparisons to Luna and FTX are rife. So, it’s time to take a closer look and find out what happened with Mantra ($OM).

What Happened to Mantra?

So, what happened to Mantra? We know that it crashed almost 90%. But why? Well, here is what we do know. During the last 30 days, the $OM price dropped from just above $7 to just over $6. Nothing too serious here, tho. Many other projects did worse.

However, since 7th April, Lookonchain states that at least 17 wallets deposited 43.6M $OM ($227M at the time) into exchanges. That’s 4.5% of the circulating supply. Arkham tagged two of these addresses to Laser Digital. That’s one of the investors or VCs in Mantra. Onchain sleuth Amir Omru confirms Laser Digital’s involvement.

A wallet, linked to Shane Shin, also did a few test transfers for 2 million $OM. He’s a co-founding Partner at Shorooq Partners. Another VC that invested in mantra. This time in 2022. 

So, this looks like the VCs dumped with thin liquidity in the $OM token. Dumping this number of tokens was bound to lead to a severe price drop. The question now is, according to South Park, who killed Kenny? Kenny, the CEO of the Manta Foundation, was mixed up in this. That’s not Mantra, but Manta. However, the real CEO of Mantra is JP Mullin. What’s in a name, right?

As you can see in his X post, he wasn’t aware of this and mentions a mass liquidation. He claims that the team was not involved in this. The Mantra team had a similar message on their X account. However, JP Mullin has a different theory. Let’s take a look at that.

JP Mullin’s Reaction, the CEO of Mantra

In Mullin’s post on X he mentions that he will get to the bottom of this. He states something in the thread that caught my attention. Ormu, the onchain sleuth, asked if it was Laser Digital that caused this crash. 

However, Mullin denies this. He alleges that it was a group of investors forced closed by a CEX without margin call, or notice. Mullin reaffirms that the team didn’t move any tokens.

Various voices in support rang out on this. Among others, Ran Neuner, founder of Crypto Banter, expressed support on this. Marty Party goes a step further. He claims that Mullin specifically points out Binance. Marty has been chasing down Binance during recent months. He accuses them of market manipulation. 

On the other hand, Mullin thanked Binance for being helpful and cooperative. In the same thread, he claims that it wasn’t Binance.

Before that, Mullin wrote a long post explaining what happened. That’s according to his and his team’s findings. He mentions negligence at best. Or, possibly intentional market positioning taken by centralized exchanges.

So, there’s seems to be a lot going on behind the scenes. But at least Mullin is out there communicating. That’s more than we see from many project leaders.

What Else Was Going on at Mantra?

Mantra has seen some controversy before, as I’ll get to in a second. They’ve also survived it and been around for more than 5 years. That means multiple cycles. Bull and bear markets. And there are not many projects that can say that.

There was an airdrop that got delayed multiple times. At some stage, 50% of all eligible addresses were considered bots and were no longer on the airdrop list. That was done without further proof. It was poorly managed. There’s a lot of FUD around this topic, too. But that’s not the first project where that’s ever happened…the mismanagement or the FUD.

There’s also a lot of general FUD and unsubstantiated rumors going around. Stuff like their Telegram is deleted. It’s not. So don’t fall for that stuff. Here it is just to show you.

The team also allegedly controls 90% of the token supply. So, this doesn’t make for great tokenomics. But once the OKX deposits started, there were also OTC rumors. It’s an open secret that private investors bought OTC at a 50% discount. Why? No one knows yet. However, once the $OM price dropped lower than the discounts, OTC buyers started cutting losses. Retail followed, and fear kicked in. There was a race to the exit.

How Did This Impact the Crypto Market?

So far, this hasn’t impacted the market like the Luna and FTX crashes did. There was a minor dip, but Bitcoin bounced back fast. The crypto market seems neutral. Of course, this needs time to settle, so there’s time to unravel what exactly happened. It’s a developing story, and we will keep a close watch on it. 

We can only recommend don’t try to catch a falling knife at this point. If it’s a great discount now, it still will be when we learn all the facts and find out what really happened. 

So, what do you make of this? Will $OM recover or not? Let me know in the comments. Make sure to follow our discussions on X and Discord.

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