Mantra's OM token crashes by 90%, with CEO attributing the drop to forced liquidations amid low liquidity - IcoHolder.

Mantra’s CEO, JP Mullin, has attributed the dramatic price drop of its native token, OM, to forced liquidations by centralized exchanges, not to any actions by the project’s team or investors. On April 13, the price of OM plummeted over 90%, falling from around $6.30 to below $0.50 within a few hours. Mullin stated in an April 14 post on X that the liquidations occurred suddenly during low-liquidity hours on a Sunday evening UTC, which he believes exacerbated the market impact.

Mullin clarified that the Mantra team had not sold any OM tokens, as the tokens remain locked according to the project’s vesting schedule. He also reaffirmed the project’s long-term commitment and called for continued support from the community.

However, some independent analysts have raised conflicting views. Max Brown, a crypto analyst, suggested that the sell-off began when 3.9 million OM tokens were deposited on OKX from a wallet believed to be linked to the Mantra team. Brown speculated that this move alarmed the market, especially considering that the team allegedly controls nearly 90% of the total supply of OM, triggering the sell-off.

The crash wiped out more than $5.5 billion in market capitalization, with OM’s market cap shrinking from $6 billion to under $485 million at its lowest point. As of press time, OM was trading at $0.8623, down 90% from its February all-time high of $8.99. Trading volume for OM surged over 2,500% in the past 24 hours, reaching $1.9 billion, according to crypto.news price tracker.

Despite the recent crash, Mantra, which was launched as a regulatory-compliant real-world asset-focused layer-1 blockchain, has made notable strides in recent months. The project secured a $1 billion partnership with real estate giant DAMAC to tokenize assets and was granted a virtual asset service provider license by Dubai’s VARA in February, allowing it to operate legally in the UAE.

However, the crash has revived criticism of the project. Wu Blockchain, a popular X news channel, reposted a 2021 warning about Mantra’s founding team, linking them to a gambling website and previous false investment claims. Some traders have voiced concerns over the project’s transparency and exchange processes, drawing comparisons to past collapses like that of Terra.