Who Killed $OM? Inside the Sudden Collapse of MANTRA

On Sunday, the native token of leading RWA platform MANTRA (OM) crashed: within just one hour, the price dropped from $6 to $0.37. The token’s market cap evaporated, falling from $5.9 billion to just $500 million (-92%). All in a single candle! 

This marked one of the sharpest declines among major tokens in 2025.

The OM crash hit during low-liquidity hours, a time when the market reacts sharply to large moves. OM broke below $1 and briefly touched $0.37. Currently, it trades more than 90% below its February high of $8.99.

In response, the MANTRA team quickly issued a statement: “The network is fine,” “There was no insider activity,” and “The crash came from reckless liquidations on exchanges.” 

However, the community didn’t trust a word of it.

While the project promises to look into the situation and share more details later, the market has already drawn its own conclusions. The chart moved instantly, the response lagged behind, and the explanations felt too vague. 

With billions in market cap wiped out, the message sounded weak and unconvincing.

The Official Line from the Mantra Team: It Wasn’t Us

The first explanations came quickly. Project co-founder John Patrick Mullin said the OM crash happened because of a wave of cascading liquidations on centralized exchanges.

He claimed that positions got closed “without margin calls or warnings,” which set off a chain reaction in an already low-liquidity environment.

Mullin emphasized that the team’s tokens remain in custody, and anyone can verify this using the publicly shared address. He also added, “We are here and not going anywhere.”

Additionally, he dismissed rumors about the project’s Telegram chat being deleted, saying the channel continues to operate as usual.

MANTRA’s official channels repeated the same message: the project is “fundamentally strong,” and the OM crash came from “reckless liquidations” that had nothing to do with the team’s actions. 

These messages focus on blaming outside forces while insisting everything inside remains stable. The team refuses to take responsibility, asks for patience, and promises to share more details later.

However, for investors watching the project’s multi-billion-dollar market cap collapse in a matter of minutes, this doesn’t feel like an answer. It feels like a way to buy time before facing the real conversation.

The Voice of the Community: Dumped Tokens, a Deleted Telegram, and Mullin Under Fire

Following the Mantra crash, crypto players didn’t wait for answers. Within a few hours, screenshots, speculation, and accusations started spreading across X.

One viral post, which reached 380,000 views, felt like a verdict.

It had everything at once:

• Accusations of dumping 90% of the circulating supply 
• Claims that the Telegram channel was deleted
• Personal attack on co-founder Mullin. 

No links, no evidence—but in that moment, it didn’t matter. When market cap disappears in a flash, emotion overrides reason.

While the team stuck to official statements, the community was already shaping its own narrative. And in that version, Mullin wasn’t trying to “sort things out.” He was the one who pulled the trigger.

ZachXBT vs Mantra: The Crypto Detective Tries to Uncover the Truth

When Mantra posted its official tweet along the lines of “Everything’s fine, it wasn’t us,” one reply quickly became the voice of the skeptics: “What kind of statement is this — OM went down 90%+ from $5.9B to $500M in a single candle…”

That message came from ZachXBT, one of the most influential independent investigators in the crypto space. His posts often trigger chain reactions, drawing attention from the media, prosecutors, and major exchanges. As a result, his words feel less like opinion and more like a verdict.

In contrast to the vague tone of Mantra’s official tweet (“We are looking into it”), ZachXBT responded with clarity: a crash of this scale isn’t just about liquidations. Especially when billions vanish in minutes, without warning and with almost no reaction from the team in real time.

That tweet, along with hundreds of others like it, is breaking down Mantra’s attempt to control the narrative. While the team asks for “a little more time” and points to technical factors, ZachXBT asks the real question: Where is the accountability?

Read more: ZachXBT: The Blockchain Researcher and Crypto Detective

Points of Tension: Moments That Don’t Add Up

Several hours have passed since the OM crash, but instead of answers, more questions keep surfacing. And the longer the silence drags on, the louder it feels.

• Why did it happen at night?

The most volatile part of the drop hit during the low-liquidity Asian trading session. That’s when even a single large move can crash the market. It’s not a smoking gun, but the timing feels too convenient to ignore.

• Why did $3.5B in market cap disappear so quickly?

Liquidations can push prices down—but this fast? In just one hour? With that level of depth? Where’s the line between a technical drop and something that crosses into anomaly?

• Who pulled the first trigger?

The official version blames “reckless liquidations.” But those don’t happen out of nowhere. They start when the first trade moves the price. Who was that first seller? Is there any connection to the project? Can affiliated wallets be traced?

• If everything’s under control, why can’t anyone explain what really happened?

Mantra claims it’s working on it. But there’s still no technical breakdown, no liquidation analysis, no third-party investigation. The team says, “We are here and not going anywhere.” But the questions remain unanswered.

Legally, there’s still no basis to claim this case involved malicious intent. But the scale of the damage demands much clearer explanations than vague talk of “unforeseen events.” 

When billions disappear, it’s the project that should come forward with a report—not ask for more time to figure it out later.

Update: On-Chain Data — Who Sold OM?

After OM plunged 90%, many began asking for proof. And now, some of it is starting to appear. 

According to Arkham Intelligence, at least 17 wallets began moving 43.6 million OM tokens to exchanges on April 7. That amounts to 4.5% of the circulating supply (roughly $260 million at the time).

Notably, two of the wallets are linked to Laser Digital, Mantra’s strategic investor. These aren’t random traders. They’re directly connected to the project.

If this were just a case of accidental liquidations, how do you explain the synchronized transfers from affiliated wallets? And if no one is “to blame,” why did a major investor start selling tokens immediately after the OM crash?

Consequences: A Blow to RWA and Community Trust

Until April 7, many viewed Mantra as one of the most ambitious projects in the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization space. It positioned itself as a Layer 1 network focused on regulatory compliance, with partnerships across government and corporate sectors, support from Google Cloud, and collaboration with UAE real estate giant DAMAC Group.

Related: Tokenization of Real World Assets (RWA): A Comprehensive Review

The OM incident isn’t just the collapse of one token. It’s a blow to the entire idea of an “institutional blockchain” where everything runs by the rules, with oversight and control. If a project like this can lose billions in a single minute, what hope is there for less formal projects?

The RWA sector has long been promoted as a bridge between TradFi and DeFi. But bridges don’t hold without trust. And when one of the loudest players in the space can’t explain what happened—or who sold the tokens—that trust starts to break.

Mantra isn’t the only player in this space. RWA is a hot topic right now. But after this incident, investors are asking a fair question: “Who’s next?” 

Every RWA project now faces a new challenge: proving it’s truly different.