Layer 1 MANTRA's token falls 90% in sudden crash; team blames 'reckless liquidations'

The token of real-world asset (RWA) focused Layer 1 blockchain MANTRA ($OM) dramatically collapsed in price on Sunday, crashing over 90% in a matter of hours, and leaving investors scrambling to assess the fallout. 

The $OM token, which began trading in August 2020, dipped about 10% between 5:20 pm UTC and 6:20 pm UTC, according to The Block's MANTRA Price Page, then suddenly crashed from its then-value of $5.21 down to its current value around $0.50, a stunning 90% plummet over the course of just 90 minutes. 

A message posted by community lead Dustin McDaniel downplayed allegations that the MANTRA team sold, shortly before the project's public-facing Telegram group became inaccessible. "I do not know anything until team has had time to look into [the price drop]," McDaniel acknowledged in a Telegram message to The Block. 

MANTRA's X account posted an update at 8:51 pm UTC on Sunday night. "Today’s activity was triggered by reckless liquidations, not anything to do with the project," MANTRA wrote. 

The project's co-founder, John Patrick Mullin, cited a "massive forced liquidation from a large OM investor on a CEX" in his own post. "Still working on the details, but we are here, and we're fixing this," he said. 

MANTRA had previously faced allegations of controlling large portions of the token's circulating supply, or "float," in an attempt to manipulate the token's price. 

Mullin, rebuffed the allegations in a response post on X. "OM has been in circulation since August 2020," Mullin wrote. "Longer than most of these people have been in crypto."

Mullin recently touted the project's strategic partnership with Dubai-based property development company DAMAC in an interview with crypto.news. "Beyond compliance, we’re driving real-world adoption through strategic partnerships – most notably with DAMAC Group, recently committing to tokenize more than US$1 billion in Dubai real estate," Mullin told the publication. 

Some investors pointed to MANTRA's total value locked (TVL) of only around $13 million, compared to its token's fully-diluted value of $9.5 billion, according to DefiLlama data, as a possible warning sign. 

X user Insomniac, governance lead for growth firm Castle Labs, identified three wallets that have sent millions of dollars worth of $OM tokens to exchanges OKX and Binance in recent days, indicating possible sales. One wallet received around $36 million worth of $OM tokens from a Binance address on March 21, then transferred around 4.3 million tokens to OKX across 8 transactions on Saturday. 

6 members of the MANTRA DAO had been previously ordered by a Hong Kong court to disclose financial records related to the project, after having been accused of misappropriating DAO assets in a lawsuit. 

Mullin and the MANTRA team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Block. 

Updated at 9:12 pm UTC with Mullin's statement and additional details.