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- Mantra CEO plans to burn 300M OM tokens originally meant for the team to regain investor confidence.
- The Ecosystem Fund will be used for buybacks and token burns to help repair tokenomics and trust.
Mantra is back in the spotlight, not because of news of major expansion or collaboration, but because of serious efforts to save its reputation and investor trust. A few days ago, the value of Mantra’s OM token plunged sharply by 90% in just a matter of hours. From about $6, the price dropped to $0.40.
This incident aroused rapid suspicion and panic. However, John Patrick Mullin, Mantra CEO, instantly spoke up. According to him, the coin was sold not by an internal team, but rather through a huge liquidation on a centralized exchange during quiet market conditions.
Just imagine, more than $50 million of OM futures contracts were liquidated. Meanwhile, open interest, which originally reached $345 million, plummeted to just $130 million. It wasn’t just retail investors who were affected, but also the Mantra ecosystem as a whole.
Mullin himself admitted that when the incident occurred, he was sleeping in a hotel room, and when he woke up, the price of OM had collapsed. The decline occurred on Saturday night, a time when liquidity is usually minimal.
A Massive Burn to Win Back Trust
In response to this turmoil, according to Binance, Mullin offered a fairly drastic solution: burning 300 million OM tokens that were originally allocated to his team. That amount covers about 16.88% of the total token supply and was originally scheduled to be released in stages from April 2027 to October 2029.
But now, he is ready to delete everything. He even said that he will not ask for replacement tokens unless the community asks for them back one day.
Furthermore, Mantra will also use the previously announced $109 million Ecosystem Fund to buy back and burn OM tokens from the market. This plan is expected to improve the tokenomics structure and at the same time stabilize the price amid uncertainty.
According to the CNF, this fund was previously intended to support blockchain projects that have a real impact in the real world, while also attracting well-known teams and founders to the Mantra network.
Mantra’s Turmoil and the Urgency of Accountability
On the other hand, allegations against third parties such as Laser Digital have also surfaced. There are reports that around $227 million in OM tokens were sent to exchanges before the price plummeted.
However, Laser Digital, a subsidiary of Nomura Group, immediately denied their involvement and even released their wallet addresses publicly for transparency. They asserted that the transfers were not made by them.
However, this chaos brings one big lesson to any crypto project: trust can be destroyed overnight. Swift and bold action like Mullin’s may be the only way to restore reputation. While it is too early to say whether OM’s price will fully recover, these steps show that Mantra is at least trying to act responsibly amid the chaos.
Meanwhile, as of press time, OM is trading at about $0.7807, up 26.62% over the last 24 hours. It is driving its market cap to surpass the $750 million mark.
