Mantra DAO’s token OM dropped an eye-watering 95%, wiping out an estimated $6 billion in value in under an hour, marking the fastest and most severe single-asset collapse in DeFi history, second only to Terra LUNA’s fall from grace.
This event will chant its way into crypto history books alongside LUNA, albeit for different reasons.
Before the drop, OM hummed at just over $6, with market sentiment mindfully aligned toward a $10 target this bull run. It sank to a low of $0.35 and now sits at around $0.5.
The major drop casts serious doubt over the DAO’s financial stability and raises urgent questions about its long-term viability — both for the project itself and the broader blockchain ecosystem it’s built on.
This story is still breaking, and I will be posting updates below.
UPDATE:
The MANTRA team has just deposited 38M ($26.96 million dollars) to a Binance Cold wallet.
The intention is unclear, but people speculate that the team is planning to continue to sell. Source
What are Mantra and OM?
Mantra DAO is a blockchain protocol focused on tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs), such as real estate, bonds, and commodities, aiming to bridge traditional finance with decentralized systems. Launched in 2020, the project operates as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), where OM token holders govern protocol upgrades and strategic decisions.
Recent discussions around real-world assets (RWAs), the prospect of more crypto-friendly regulations, and growing adoption have fuelled significant interest and support for Mantra.
Mantra’s star was rising before the crash. A January 2025 deal with DAMAC Group to tokenize $1B in real estate and a February VARA license from Dubai bolstered its RWA credentials.
However, an October 2024 tokenomics overhaul — doubling OM’s supply to 1.77 billion and introducing 3% annual inflation — sparked investor worries about dilution, potentially priming the market for panic.
How did it happen?
According to Mantra’s co-founder JP Mulling, the drop was caused by “reckless forces liquidations” on centralized exchanges. The initial wave of liquidations took place during low-liquidity hours, likely causing a cascading effect and driving the price down rapidly.
The Mantra team has since released a public statement on X (formerly known as Twitter), denying any involvement or responsibility from the team itself.
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
The brief explanation was received with a significant dose of skepticism, with some traders labeling it a potential “rug pull” similar to the previous Terra LUNA & FTX collapse. While no concrete evidence supports these claims, something is definitely wrong here. Let’s go over the facts.
Mantra’s OM — The Facts
The selloff’s trigger is primarily linked to a deposit of 3.9 million OM tokens to the OKX exchange, reported by multiple sources as occurring shortly before the price collapse, using on-chain analytics platform Arkham.
The deposit was broken down into several chunks, and all took place over the course of a few days, totalling up to around $41.8 million.
Here’s a breakdown according to on-chain analytics.
The total amount deposited to OKX matches the balance transferred from a wallet associated with Laser Digital to a Mantra-affiliated wallet. Laser Digital, a digital asset subsidiary of Nomura and a strategic investor in Mantra, had previously participated in an $11 million funding round aimed at advancing real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation efforts.
Although the wallet activity raised red flags, Laser Digital later clarified that the transfer represented the return of collateral following the expiry of a financing trade with a third party and affirmed that their core OM investment remains locked.
Mantra CEO John Mullin denied reports suggesting large-scale token transfers by major Mantra investors in the days leading up to the sharp collapse of the OM token, while speaking in an AMA hosted by Cointelegraph on April 14.
“The Mantra association, our key investors, our advisers — no one has sold, and we are going to categorically deny and also provide verifiable proof onchain proof that this is the case,” Mullin stated in the AMA.
Furthermore, Mantra has released a statement saying that Arkham has mislabeled the on-chain wallets and don’t, in fact, belong to Laser Digital.
Will OM Recover?
Whether Mantra’s OM token can chant its way back from a 95% nosedive — shedding $6 billion in an hour — hinges on trust, execution, and market mercy. It’s worth keeping in mind that we’re in an emotionally strung market, and people are generally a lot more risk-averse now, so if a recovery is on the books, it’s likely that investors will take some time to properly meditate on their choices before jumping in.
The bottom line is that a 90% discount could look very attractive, but if you’re thinking: “how much lower can it go?” — allow me to remind you that LUNA dropped 90% day-on-day for 3 days in a row.
Considerations
Unlike Terra LUNA’s 2022 collapse, driven by a stablecoin depeg and algorithmic flaws, OM’s fall was a market-driven implosion fueled by exchange liquidations. Yet, like LUNA, it exposed trust vulnerabilities in DeFi.
The crash follows a string of 2025 shocks, including a $1.4B Bybit hack and Libra memecoin’s failure, making it a rather eventful start of 2025 for Crypto and DeFi.
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