The price of the Mantra (OM) token, the native cryptocurrency of the Mantra real-world tokenized asset blockchain, has collapsed by over 90% in the last 24 hours. On April 13, Mantra fell from a price of approximately $6.30 to below $0.50 and shed over 90% of its $6 billion market cap. Some traders characterized the token collapse as an apparent rug pull. Market investor Gordon wrote: "[The] team needs to address this or OM looks like it could head to zero, biggest rug pull since LUNA/FTX?" However, the exact reason for the collapse of the OM token's price is not clear at the time of this writing. Cointelegraph reached out to the Mantra team for comment on the OM token collapse but did not receive an answer by the time of publication.
The incident follows several high-profile token collapses and cybersecurity incidents, including the Libra memecoin implosion and the $1.4 billion Bybit hack, responsible for billions of dollars in investor losses during the first few months of 2025.
Mantra co-founder JP Mullin responded to the OM token collapse and said that the project's Telegram group is still online. Mullin added that the Mantra team's tokens are still in the team's custody. "We are here and not going anywhere," Mullin wrote in an X post, while providing a verification address for the Mantra team's OM tokens.
The Mantra Team also claimed that the OM price implosion was "triggered by reckless liquidations" and not related to actions undertaken by the team. In January 2025, Mantra and investment conglomerate DAMAC signed a $1 billion deal to tokenize the investment conglomerate's various assets, which include real estate, data centers, and other physical properties on the Mantra blockchain. Mantra obtained a virtual asset service provider license from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) in February 2025. The license allows Mantra to operate as a digital asset service provider in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), running crypto exchanges, broker-dealer services, management, and investment consulting inside the Middle Eastern country.
The expansion of Mantra's footprint in the United Arab Emirates was fueled by high demand for tokenized products from real estate investors and developers looking for new ways of funding projects and securing capital. Near-instant finality times for tokenized real-world assets, reduced costs, and cross-border functionality are just some of the reasons investors cite for using blockchain to secure investments and aid in capital formation.
Just a couple of days ago, Mantra (OM) touted a 640% gain in 12 months. At last check, its $6 billion market cap fell to about $485 million. Patrick Mullin, Mantra’s CEO, recently spoke to crypto.news about being a fully compliant, end-to-end ecosystem for RWA tokenization and trading. The company, fresh from securing a VASP license from Dubai’s VARA, had plans to legally operate as a virtual asset exchange. It’s unclear whether the recent downtrend will stymie those plans.
Mantra’s newly launched fund, MEF, has been established to support RWA and DeFi projects globally for over four years. The company, which offers OM-token grants and capital investments, remained focused on lending/borrowing, trading, asset management, derivatives, and infrastructure. Mantra also inked a $1 billion tokenization deal with DAMAC Group, covering real estate, hospitality, and data centers.
The company had several initiatives in the works, but the crypto X community was quick to point out several developments that they perceived as problematic. One research analyst known as Choze compared Mantra’s free fall to the May 2022 collapse of the Terra ecosystem. "Welcome to Terra Luna V.2," Choze tweeted to over 20,000 followers. "For those wondering, the $OM team dumped their entire allocation," Choze added. "That’s 90% of the total circulating supply, gone. They also deleted Mantra’s official Telegram group. Just like that, $3.5 billion in market cap vanished." TrimBot, who describes himself as an RWA bull, blasted Mantra as "pure market manipulation."
Crypto.news attempted to contact a Mantra spokesperson via its website, but was unsuccessful. It was not clear whether the startup’s web page was down or not accepting media inquiries. In an official statement, Mullin explained the jaw-dropping 90% plunge in the OM token, a crash that saw OM fall from $6.30 to just $0.37 within hours on April 13. Mullin denied allegations of team or investor involvement, pointing to centralized exchanges’ unchecked authority. He stated that the sell-off was not triggered internally and pledged to share more details soon.
While some in the crypto community were quick to point fingers at the Mantra team, accusing them of dumping their holdings, Mullin categorically denied the allegations. Instead, he pinned the blame on "reckless forced closures" initiated by centralized exchanges (CEXs) during a period of low liquidity, suggesting that the damage wasn’t due to any internal foul play. "The timing and depth of the crash suggest that a very sudden closure of account positions was initiated without sufficient warning or notice," Mullin wrote in a public statement. "This was not caused by the team, the MANTRA Chain Association, its core advisors, or MANTRA’s investors."
Without naming any specific exchange, Mullin criticized the unchecked authority and discretion exercised by CEXs, arguing that their actions created a perfect storm during a vulnerable time Sunday evening UTC (early Monday in Asia), when trading activity is historically thinner and markets are more susceptible to volatility. "This points to a degree of negligence at best or possibly intentional market positioning taken by centralized exchanges," he added.
The OM token, which had once soared to a peak of $9 earlier this year, managed a partial recovery, climbing back above $1 at the time of writing. Mullin reassured the community that all team and investor tokens remain locked by publicly available vesting schedules and emphasized that OM’s core tokenomics remain intact. Still, the explanation hasn’t calmed the storm. Critics argue that the official response lacked key details and transparency.
In a follow-up post on X, Mullin said the team is actively compiling a full breakdown of the events and would host a community discussion to provide further clarity. This incident comes amid broader turbulence in the altcoin space. Several tokens have recently experienced similar flash crashes on Binance, highlighting the growing volatility in the market. Notably, Act I: The AI Prophecy plummeted by 50%, DeXe saw a sharp 38% drop, and dForce declined by 19%, reflecting a wave of sudden and severe corrections across multiple projects. These dips followed Binance’s updated margin requirement policies, which reportedly heightened the risk of liquidations for undercollateralized positions, adding fuel to speculation that a domino effect may have triggered OM’s freefall as well.
As MANTRA deals with the fallout, the event has reignited debates around centralized exchange practices, liquidity management, and the vulnerabilities of trading during off-hours. The coming days will be critical in determining whether OM can restore confidence or if the weekend crash marks a turning point in its trajectory.
