The Most Comprehensive $OM Recap: A 100X Surge Followed by a 90% Crash, OM Dragged Down the Entire RWA Sector
Over the past few days, crypto media has been flooded with news about $OM. This “golden dog” level token, which soared by 500X in a year, experienced a catastrophic price crash in the early hours of April 14. Within just two hours, its price plummeted from $6.2 to $0.4 — a drop of over 90% — wiping out $5.5 billion in market cap in the process.
Talking about OM inevitably leads us to MANTRA. OM is the native token issued by MANTRA, a DeFi platform built on the Cosmos SDK that focuses on the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA).
MANTRA was formerly known as MANTRA DAO, launched in 2020 on Polkadot with a focus on staking and lending — essentially the DeFi we’re familiar with. Later on, for reasons unknown, it pivoted toward becoming an L1 blockchain centered around RWA. From an investor standpoint, MANTRA boasts a top-tier lineup, including Waterdrip Capital, LD Capital, Shorooq Partners, and UAE real estate developer Damac Group. Moreover, its token $OM is listed on both OKX and Binance.
Given such a strong project from all perspectives, how could it suddenly crash? Furthermore, as one of the flagship tokens in the real-world asset tokenization (RWA) sector, $OM’s crash dragged the entire RWA sector down with it, resulting in an overall 44.93% decline. What on earth happened? Let’s do a full recap of the events.
Crash Timeline
October 2024
MANTRA (OM)’s tokenomics underwent major changes, which were seen by the market as a dilution of token value, weakening investor confidence.
March 20, 2025
A community user detected a whale wallet withdrawing OM tokens and transferring them to an exchange, sparking rumors of several off-market deals at significant discounts.
Multiple OM whales subsequently began dumping tokens, leading to continuous price drops. Many OTC buyers were trapped, community panic spread, and a rush to exit ensued.
April 7–13, 2025
At least 17 wallet addresses deposited 43.6 million OM (4.5% of circulating supply) to exchanges, with a total value of around $227 million. Two of these addresses were linked to strategic investor Laser Digital. These actions occurred during the week leading up to the crash, intensifying market selling pressure.
On-chain abnormal transfers: On the night of April 13, a dormant wallet of one year transferred 2 million OM (formerly worth $12.58 million, only $1.57 million after the crash) to an address suspected to be linked to Shorooq Partners co-founder Shane Shin, sparking community suspicions of insider selling.
April 14, 2025
00:30 (UTC+8): OM price began showing volatility, with other exchanges experiencing rapid price drops and surges in trading volume.
Within 2 hours, $OM plummeted from $6.2 to $0.38, a drop of over 90%. During this time, $5.5 billion in market cap evaporated, and numerous liquidation orders triggered cascading sell-offs. The lack of market depth worsened the decline.
Within one hour after the crash, the MANTRA team issued a statement. Binance and OKX followed with their respective announcements.
$OM Official: The Crash Was Due to Exchange Negligence or Market Manipulation
MANTRA’s official statement claimed the chaos was not caused by team members, the MANTRA Chain association, core advisors, or investors dumping tokens. Tokens remain locked and subject to a published vesting schedule. Tokenomics are unchanged, and users are reminded not to click on any scam links or impersonated MANTRA accounts.
The team also pointed out that the incident occurred during a low-liquidity period, potentially due to exchange negligence or market manipulation. The timing and severity of the crash suggest that positions were abruptly liquidated without sufficient warning or notification. This took place on a Sunday night (early Monday in Asia) in UTC, when liquidity is typically low, indicating a degree of negligence on the part of CEXs, or possibly intentional market positioning.
Statements from Other Parties
Binance: Suggested the crash may have been caused by “cross-platform liquidations.” Since October 2024, it had implemented risk controls such as lowering leverage limits for OM and added a tokenomics change warning pop-up on the spot trading page.
OKX: Adjusted risk control parameters and disclosed large deposits and withdrawals from on-chain addresses since early March. CEO Star called it a “major industry scandal” and pledged to cooperate with investigations.
Laser Digital: Denied involvement in the sell-off, stating the related wallet does not belong to them and their core holdings remain locked.
Shorooq Partners: Attributed the crash to “mass forced liquidations triggering panic selling” and disclosed wallet addresses for transparency.
These are the full details of the $OM crash incident. The market clearly did not buy the official explanation, especially given the unusual on-chain activity that has sparked community suspicions of insider dumping and market manipulation.
Long before the incident, crypto analyst Mosi had already pointed out that OM had a TVL of less than $4 million, yet a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of over $10 billion, driven by the team manipulating OM’s circulating supply to control price action. Statistics show the MANTRA team held 92 million OM in wallets — 90% of the total supply.
As the market dug deeper, more of MANTRA’s controversial past was uncovered:
In 2020, MANTRA — then known as MANTRA DAO — was labeled by the market as “a scam disguised under hot trends like DeFi and Polkadot.”
Wu Blockchain revealed that the core team and advisors of Mantra DAO had questionable backgrounds, with identity fraud and even histories of fraud. Founder Calvin Ng’s background is highly controversial and closely tied to online gambling platform 21Pink.
Wu also exposed that Mantra DAO’s CEO John Patrick Mullin was previously a copywriter for NEO and involved with failed token TIO and the exit-scam exchange Trade.io.
In early 2022, MANTRA became embroiled in legal disputes due to internal conflicts. RioDeFi filed a lawsuit against MANTRA DAO, accusing it of ownership disputes, mismanagement, and asset misappropriation.
In August 2024, the Hong Kong High Court intervened, ordering MANTRA DAO key figures to disclose financial records in response to allegations of asset misappropriation and unauthorized control. This became the world’s first judicial review case concerning DAO ownership and governance.
Note: All related information is sourced from publicly available historical reports. SuperEx has merely compiled and summarized it.
Overall, unresolved early controversies, highly controlled tokenomics, behind-the-scenes capital manipulation, and the hype around the RWA narrative collectively led to this crash tragedy. Afterward, the project team, exchanges, and investment institutions each gave their own version of events, all trying to distance themselves from responsibility — further fueling the turmoil.
As retail investors, we must learn from this incident
$OM’s FDV/TVL ratio was as high as 730 — far beyond the industry’s healthy range (usually below 50). This extremely unhealthy indicator shows that OM’s market value far exceeded its actual value support, making it highly vulnerable to shorting or liquidation.
