Mantra's OM Token Plummets 92% Amid Exchange Price Divergence

Mantra, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, released an official statement on April 16 addressing the 92% flash crash of its OM token that occurred on April 13. The statement, titled “Statement of Events: 13 April 2025,” emphasized that the crash was not due to any token sales by the project itself. The Mantra team remains operational and is continuing its investigation into the incident.

Despite CEO John Mullin's earlier mention of preparing a post-mortem, the new statement provided few additional details about the reasons behind the rapid movement of OM tokens to exchanges and the subsequent liquidation cascade. The statement reiterated that there are two types of OM tokens: one based on Ethereum (ERC-20) and the other running on Mantra’s mainnet. The incident primarily involved ERC-20 OM tokens, as they represent virtually the entire liquid market.

The original ERC-20 OM token, launched in August 2020, has a fixed supply of 888.8 million OM, with 99.9% of these tokens in public circulation as of April 15. In contrast, Mantra mainnet OM tokens had only 77.5 million in circulation after the Mantra Chain minted an equivalent amount of OM in October 2024.

The statement also noted a divergence in OM spot prices on OKX and Binance, which began around 6:00 pm UTC, approximately an hour before the OM token’s crash. Mantra stated that further information from its exchange partners would provide more clarity on these events, inviting centralized exchange partners to collaborate on providing more clarity on trading activities during this time.

The Mantra team confirmed that it is preparing a support plan for OM, which includes both a token buyback and a supply burn. However, no timeline for the rollout of this plan was provided. The statement comes amid ongoing scrutiny following the crash, with OKX CEO Star Xu calling Mantra a “big scandal” in a post published hours after the incident. Mullin also mentioned that Binance is the biggest holder of the OM token, citing Etherscan records.

Despite the statement, key questions remain unanswered, leaving the community and investors seeking more transparency and clarity on the events surrounding the OM token crash. The lack of detailed information and the absence of a clear timeline for the support plan have raised concerns about the platform's ability to regain trust and stability.