- The MANTRA co-founder has attributed an extraordinary crash of its OM token to “reckless liquidations” by large holders
- The OM token yesterday dropped 87% in just three hours on Sunday
- Co-founder John Patrick Mullin has denied any team involvement and is investigating the cause
The Co-founder of the MANTRA project has blamed “reckless liquidations” for the staggering 87% drop in the value of its OM token yesterday. The token fell from over $6 to approximately $0.79 in the space of just three hours on Sunday, with cascade liquidations exacerbating the drop. MANTRA Co-founder John Patrick Mullin has emphasized that the team is actively investigating the situation and has denied any wrongdoing from the team, promising that it will continue.
MANTRA Denies Insider Dealing
OM’s price had been hovering around the $6 mark for around a week when it suddenly fell off a cliff on Sunday:
The team labeled this event “unprecedented” and stated that it is working to understand the underlying causes. In a lengthy X post, Mullin explained the early thinking:
We have determined that the OM market movements were triggered by reckless forced closures initiated by centralized exchanges on OM account holders. The timing and depth of the crash suggest that a very sudden closure of account positions was initiated without sufficient warning or notice. That this happened during low-liquidity hours on a Sunday evening UTC (early morning Asia time) points to a degree of negligence at best, or possibly intentional market positioning taken by centralized exchanges.
The rapid decline has led to speculation about potential insider actions, with some community members pointing to large transfers of OM tokens to exchanges like OKX and Binance prior to the crash. However, Mullin has provided wallet addresses to verify that team-held tokens remain untouched and has assured that the team is committed to resolving the issue, something that MANTRA itself stated on X:
MANTRA itself commented, too, reassuring the community that it would continue:
MANTRA community – we want to assure you that MANTRA is fundamentally strong. Today’s activity was triggered by reckless liquidations, not anything to do with the project. One thing we want to be clear on: this was not our team. We are looking into it and will share more details…
— MANTRA | Tokenizing RWAs (@MANTRA_Chain) April 13, 2025
Mullin confirmed that, despite the setback, MANTRA will keep going:
MANTRA is a project that has survived and operated throughout multiple market cycles. When others stopped building, we kept going. This is no exception.
Mullin also announced that a live event will be held on X to explain the crash in more detail in a bid to ensure transparency.
