The crypto market has seen some wild moments but few have been as wild as Mantra’s OM token crashing 90% in a day. This brutal price drop on April 13 has left investors reeling and raised big questions about the governance and future of Mantra.
Insider trading allegations and conflicting reports from the team have Mantra in the hot seat and this could be one of the most turbulent times in the platform’s history.
OM Implosion
On April 13, OM token went from a daily high of $6.30 to a low of under $0.50. That’s a $5.5 billion market cap wipe out in a day. Social media and trading forums were blowing up with speculation and frustration as traders tried to make sense of the chaos.
At the heart of the crash was what Mantra’s CEO John Patrick Mullin called a “massive forced liquidation” on the centralized exchanges. According to Mullin, the cascading sell orders drained the liquidity and created a domino effect that killed the price. While the CEO said it wasn’t insider selling, blockchain analysts are pointing to suspicious wallet activity that tells a different story.
Insider Selling
Adding fuel to the fire are allegations that key Mantra investors sold a large chunk of OM tokens just before the crash. Reports from blockchain analytics platforms including Arkham Intelligence show that wallets linked to strategic investor Laser Digital moved millions of OM tokens to exchanges in the days and weeks leading up to the crash. Two wallets associated with Laser Digital moved over 43 million OM tokens (worth $227 million) to Binance and OKX.
Laser Digital has officially denied any involvement in the market activity that caused the OM crash. In a social media statement they said the wallets in question didn’t belong to them and that the allegations of wrongdoing were “factually incorrect and misleading”.
1/ We want to directly address recent speculation around Laser Digital’s involvement in the price action of $OM (Mantra) @MANTRA_Chain.
— Laser Digital (@LaserDigital_) April 14, 2025
2/ Laser has no involvement in the recent price collapse of $OM.
Assertions circulating on social media that link Laser to 'investor selling'…
Shorooq Partners is also under fire after Lookonchain data showed a wallet linked to founding partner Shane Shin moved 2 million OM tokens just hours before the crash. Shorooq has denied these claims saying neither the firm nor its leadership sold tokens during this period.
Mantra’s Official Statement
As the pressure mounts, Mullin took to social media and an AMA with Cointelegraph to address the crisis. He denied the Mantra team or key investors sold tokens leading up to the crash. “We will provide verifiable on-chain proof that these accusations are false” he said. “We are committed to transparency and accountability”.
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
But his words have done little to calm the nerves of investors as data from blockchain trackers continues to contradict the Mantra CEO. Independent analysts are skeptical, some saying issues with the ecosystem’s governance and tokenomics may have contributed to the crash.
Broader Implications for the Mantra Ecosystem
Before this incident, Mantra was positioning itself as a player in DeFi and RWA tokenization. The platform had a $1 billion tokenization deal with real estate giant DAMAC and a virtual asset license from the Dubai VARA authority.
But now the project is in crisis. Critics have long questioned OM’s tokenomics with a fully diluted valuation of $9.5 billion against a TVL of $13 million. With investor confidence shaken and OM’s use cases under scrutiny, the ecosystem has a long way to go to regain legitimacy.
And to make things worse, legal issues popped up as well. This week six members of Mantra DAO were ordered by a Hong Kong court to disclose financial records as part of an investigation into alleged fund misappropriation. This adds to the chaos for the team and its stakeholders.
What’s Next for Mantra and OM?
Mantra will review the forced liquidations internally and work on governance and rebuilding trust. Investors and analysts will be watching to see if they deliver or if this is the end of Mantra as a DeFi player.
Binance and OKX will investigate cross-exchange liquidations which many believe was the main cause of the crash. The findings will be crucial in understanding what triggered one of the biggest market events of 2025.
For now, Mantra’s future is uncertain. Will they recover from this or become another cryptocurrency cautionary tale? One thing is for sure, the OM implosion has sent a clear message about the dangers of speculation and poor governance in the wild west of digital assets.