OM coin price plunges 90%, sparking fraud allegations: Is the Mantra crash the next crypto catastrophe?

Over the weekend, crypto traders were likely anything but zen, as the price of OM—the native token to the Mantra blockchain—crashed more than 90%. On Sunday, OM prices fell from around $6.30 to less than $0.50 within a couple of hours, shaking up the crypto markets and likely leaving many people with crypto holdings wondering if they were witnessing another catastrophe like the FTX collapse. But that doesn’t appear to be the case so far. Here’s a rundown of the important facts to know, as we understand them on Monday morning. What happened with Mantra? As noted, OM values plummeted sharply on Sunday, April 14 by more than 90%. It was unclear what exactly was happening at the time, so many crypto traders and investors were justifiably spooked. In all, OM’s crash resulted in roughly $72 million in liquidations, and its market capitalization fell from around $6 billion to around $683 million. Again, this all happened within a matter of hours, creating a good amount of confusion and worry. What caused the Mantra crypto crash? While initial fears centered around a rug-pull scheme—a common crypto scam similar to a pump-and-dump typically seen in the traditional stock markets—Mantra’s co-founder JP Mullin posted on X that his team was sorting things out in an effort to calm investors. In that post, Mullin said: “We have determined that the OM market movements were triggered by reckless forced closures initiated by centralized exchanges on OM account holders. The timing and depth of the crash suggest that a very sudden closure of account positions was initiated without sufficient warning or notice.” He continued: “That this happened during low-liquidity hours on a Sunday evening UTC (early morning Asia time) points to a degree of negligence at best, or possibly intentional market positioning taken by centralized exchanges.” Some back-and-forth on X also highlighted some prior concerns about Mantra and its founding team, including that some of its members had been involved in online gambling platforms. In response to the OM crash, one large crypto exchange, OKX, released a statement noting that its team “conducted investigations and identified major changes to the MANTRA token’s tokenomics model since Oct 2024, based on both publicly available on-chain data and internal exchange data. Our investigation also uncovered that several on-chain addresses have been executing potentially coordinated large-scale deposits and withdrawals across various centralized exchanges since Mar 2025.” The exchange also noted that it had added warnings to the OM token page on its website, and taken additional measures to control risks related to the token. Where things stand with the Mantra crypto crash It appears that things are still being sorted out as of midday Monday. Prices for Mantra’s coin OM have yet to rebound as of midday Monday, and the token is trading at around $0.68. Again, that’s down significantly from where it was a week ago, trading at more than $6.50. As it stands, some reporting indicates that OM’s crash could be the next Terra-Luna crypto scandal, which resulted in the destruction of roughly $60 billion in investor funds and sparked a “crypto winter” a few years ago. That also led to the arrest of Do Kwon, the founder of both Terra and Luna. Some crypto traders are even speculating that this marks the end of the current crypto bull market. However, Mullin continues to reassure the crypto community that his team has things under control for now.

Apr 14, 2025 - 19:55

OM coin price plunges 90%, sparking fraud allegations: Is the Mantra crash the next crypto catastrophe?

Over the weekend, crypto traders were likely anything but zen, as the price of OM—the native token to the Mantra blockchain—crashed more than 90%.

On Sunday, OM prices fell from around $6.30 to less than $0.50 within a couple of hours, shaking up the crypto markets and likely leaving many people with crypto holdings wondering if they were witnessing another catastrophe like the FTX collapse. But that doesn’t appear to be the case so far.

Here’s a rundown of the important facts to know, as we understand them on Monday morning.

What happened with Mantra?

As noted, OM values plummeted sharply on Sunday, April 14 by more than 90%. It was unclear what exactly was happening at the time, so many crypto traders and investors were justifiably spooked.

In all, OM’s crash resulted in roughly $72 million in liquidations, and its market capitalization fell from around $6 billion to around $683 million. Again, this all happened within a matter of hours, creating a good amount of confusion and worry.

What caused the Mantra crypto crash?

While initial fears centered around a rug-pull scheme—a common crypto scam similar to a pump-and-dump typically seen in the traditional stock markets—Mantra’s co-founder JP Mullin posted on X that his team was sorting things out in an effort to calm investors.

In that post, Mullin said: “We have determined that the OM market movements were triggered by reckless forced closures initiated by centralized exchanges on OM account holders. The timing and depth of the crash suggest that a very sudden closure of account positions was initiated without sufficient warning or notice.”

He continued: “That this happened during low-liquidity hours on a Sunday evening UTC (early morning Asia time) points to a degree of negligence at best, or possibly intentional market positioning taken by centralized exchanges.”

Some back-and-forth on X also highlighted some prior concerns about Mantra and its founding team, including that some of its members had been involved in online gambling platforms.

In response to the OM crash, one large crypto exchange, OKX, released a statement noting that its team “conducted investigations and identified major changes to the MANTRA token’s tokenomics model since Oct 2024, based on both publicly available on-chain data and internal exchange data. Our investigation also uncovered that several on-chain addresses have been executing potentially coordinated large-scale deposits and withdrawals across various centralized exchanges since Mar 2025.”

The exchange also noted that it had added warnings to the OM token page on its website, and taken additional measures to control risks related to the token.

Where things stand with the Mantra crypto crash

It appears that things are still being sorted out as of midday Monday.

Prices for Mantra’s coin OM have yet to rebound as of midday Monday, and the token is trading at around $0.68. Again, that’s down significantly from where it was a week ago, trading at more than $6.50.

As it stands, some reporting indicates that OM’s crash could be the next Terra-Luna crypto scandal, which resulted in the destruction of roughly $60 billion in investor funds and sparked a “crypto winter” a few years ago. That also led to the arrest of Do Kwon, the founder of both Terra and Luna. Some crypto traders are even speculating that this marks the end of the current crypto bull market.

However, Mullin continues to reassure the crypto community that his team has things under control for now.