This article will be updated with new developments.
Mantra (OM), a token that only yesterday was among the top 20 cryptocurrencies, has crashed by more than 90% in just over an hour. The price dropped from around $6 to under $0.50. More than $5 billion in market value has vanished.
Major updates to this article:
• April 15, 11:00 UTC: JP Mullin new announcement
• April 14, 13:00 UTC: Cointelegraph livestream with JP Mullin and statements from Binance and OKX
• April 14, 10:24 UTC: Laser Digital issues a statement denying involvement in OM crash
• April 13, 23:20 UTC: JP Mullin posts detailed explanation, blames centralized exchange liquidations
• April 13, 21:23 UTC: JP Mullin comments publicly for the first time
• April 13, 20:56 UTC: Mantra team issues official response
Table of Contents
A Sudden Collapse
This wasn’t a slow fade or a panic caused by outside market pressure. It was instant – almost like someone had flipped a switch. At its lowest, OM briefly dropped below $0.50. Since then, the price has tried to recover to $1, but now it hovers around $0.7:
Rugpull, Exploit – or Just a Liquidation Cascade?
Right after the crash, two main theories started spreading fast. One was that this was a rugpull – meaning someone from inside the project may have dumped or drained liquidity. The other was that it could have been an external exploit, or a smart contract bug.
Now, the team says it was neither. They’re pointing to a chain reaction of forced liquidations – large positions being closed by centralized exchanges – as the real trigger.
Team Breaks Silence: “This Wasn’t Us”
After nearly two hours of silence, the official Mantra account finally posted a first response – though it left a lot of questions unanswered. In a short message posted online, they wrote:
So far, no technical breakdown or on-chain analysis has been provided. But the team strongly denied any involvement. hat still didn’t explain what triggered those liquidations – or why it took so long to say anything at all.
The response drew immediate criticism. Some users, including ZachXBT, questioned how a project that calls itself “fundamentally strong” could lose 90% of its value in a single candle.
Co-Founder Responds to Backlash
A few minutes later, Mantra co-founder JP Mullin posted a personal message, saying he had just woken up and was still trying to piece together what happened:
He also responded to ZachXBT criticism:
He later followed up with a few more points, trying to address rumors that had started spreading across the community:
Founder Blames “Negligence” by Centralized Exchanges
Later in the evening, Mullin posted a much longer statement, giving the most detailed explanation so far:
He said the crash was triggered by “reckless forced closures initiated by centralized exchanges on OM account holders”, and that the sell-off happened during low-liquidity hours – which may have made the damage much worse.
He confirmed that team and advisor tokens remain locked and visible on-chain, and that tokenomics are unchanged. He also warned users not to click on scam links, and said the team plans to host a live community call soon to explain more.
When asked directly which centralized exchanges were responsible for the forced liquidations, Mullin replied:
In the replies, he also mentioned that they believe one exchange in particular may have been responsible – though he didn’t name it. What we do know is that it’s not Binance. Mullin confirmed this in response to a user asking if Binance was involved.
Three hours after Mullin’s detailed post, the official Mantra account shared a follow-up message – though it didn’t include any new information. Instead, it simply pointed the community to Mullin’s earlier thread.
Mullin also addressed the situation during a talk at the BTCON RWA Summit. He reiterated key points from earlier posts – confirming that there was no exploit or hack, no insider selling, and that the crash was caused by large investor liquidations tied to OM being used as collateral.
He added that a full post-mortem is coming soon, and said the team had decided to cancel a planned panel appearance at ETH Seoul side events to focus entirely on managing the situation:
Laser Digital Denies Involvement in OM Crash
As speculation continues around who – or what – triggered the massive sell-off, one of Mantra’s early backers has issued a formal denial.
Laser Digital, a crypto investment firm backed by Nomura, posted a five-part statement addressing rumors that it may have been involved in the collapse. The team strongly denied selling OM tokens or contributing to the crash in any way:
Mantra’s official X account reposted the statement – a clear signal that the team wanted to distance itself from those rumors as well.
Binance and OKX Response
Both Binance and OKX have released official statements addressing OM’s collapse and the rumors around how it unfolded.
In a general notice to users, Binance said its internal findings point to “cross-exchange liquidations” as the main cause of the sudden crash. The platform emphasized that it had already taken several precautions in recent months – including limiting OM leverage and displaying a pop-up warning about its changed tokenomics.
OKX also confirmed it had observed major volatility, stating that the crash began on other exchanges before spreading across the market.
JP Mullin Appears on Cointelegraph Stream
In the latest public appearance, JP Mullin joined a Cointelegraph livestream to comment on the situation. While no new technical details were shared, he repeated key points from earlier posts:
Mullin Announces Post-Mortem, Buyback, and Burn Plans
In a new nine-part thread posted April 15, Mantra co-founder JP Mullin shared a longer message reflecting on the events of the past two days, and outlining next steps.
He reiterated that the crash was caused by massive forced liquidations on a single exchange, again emphasizing that it was not due to any insider selling or project-level fault. He thanked partners and investors – including Shorooq Partners and Laser Digital – for their support, and acknowledged the damage suffered by OM traders during the event.
Two key announcements stood out in the thread:
- A full post-mortem report is expected within the next 24 hours, covering both on-chain and off-chain data.
- After that, Mantra plans to launch an OM token buyback program and a supply burn, aimed at restoring trust and showing long-term commitment to the project.
We’ll Update This as We Learn More
The team has now spoken, and the co-founder has offered more detail – but questions remain. No transaction-level breakdown has been shared yet, and the full scope of the forced liquidations is still unclear.
But one thing is already clear: trust in Mantra is gone. Even if the price somehow recovers, that kind of collapse will not be forgotten.
