MANTRA is a blockchain RWA L1 project that aims to comply with and execute real-world regulatory requirements. The project secured a $11 million investment led by Shorooq Partners in March last year and in January this year signed an agreement with UAE real estate developer Damac Group. MANTRA originally planned to tokenize assets worth at least $1 billion of the DAMAC Group by early 2025. Earlier today, MANTRA (OM) experienced a 90% price drop, plummeting from $6 to $0.5, resulting in a market value loss of over $5.5 billion.

Three hours later, the MANTRA team released a statement attributing the drop to irrational liquidation, stating that it was unrelated to the project itself and was not caused by the team.

Subsequently, OM surged from around $0.5 to $1.2, experiencing a brief pump. According to Coinglass data, the liquidation volume of OM contracts reached $58 million in just four hours.

Prior to this steep decline, OM had gone through multiple violent surges since November last year, earning the nickname "Strong Pump Shitcoin" from the community.

OTC Trading or Team Dumping? The Life of OM's Whale Dominance

Recently, the community and several data tracking tools reported that large OM addresses were withdrawing and depositing funds into exchanges. There were also rumors of several off-exchange transactions with discounts of 50% or more. When large holders start dumping, off-exchange buyers also panic-sell.

On March 25, according to TheDataNerd monitoring, the investment firm Laser Digital's address for MANTRA deposited 1.7 million OM tokens worth $11.49 million to Binance. The wallet had accumulated a total of 27 million OM tokens last year and still holds 6.756 million OM tokens, valued at $45.67 million.

Yesterday, as per Arkham monitoring, the address 0xA8...A84f withdrew 776,000 OM tokens worth approximately $5.84 million from Polygon's StakedOM contract.

According to Genç Trader, the wallet address 0x9a...1a28 transferred approximately $20 million worth of OM to OKX 23 hours ago. Based on past records, this address had withdrawn around $40 million worth of OM from Binance just a month ago and was one of the whales that pumped the coin's price.

Some whales have spoken out on social media, with "JeetBurner" claiming on X that he had invested $3.5 million in OM due to his expectations for the future of the "RWA" industry. However, the token is now worth only $200,000, while also "accusing" Binance and the team behind $OM of enriching themselves. He also mentioned that if this matter is not handled properly, he will hire the New York law firm Burwick, specialized in handling cryptocurrency cases, to further address the issue.

Several OM whales dumping their holdings are believed to be the direct cause of this recent crash, but the community believes that all of this may have been premeditated.

Airdrop Controversy

Last November, MANTRA announced changes to its airdrop rules, stating that the previous "3-month cliff period followed by initial liquidity mining and a 9-month linear unlock" would be modified to a "1-month cliff period followed by an 11-month linear unlock," sparking strong dissatisfaction in the community.

In the early stages, MANTRA used high-profile expectation management to fuel user enthusiasm, claiming to distribute 50 million OM tokens and promising a 20% unlock upon listing, with the airdrop to be completed within a month.

However, in practice, MANTRA repeatedly amended the airdrop rules, first changing the "unlock upon listing" to "begin linear release after one month," then further delaying it to "10% initial release, with the remainder vested for up to three years." In conjunction with changes to the roadmap, token distribution structure, and other mechanisms, MANTRA essentially transformed community traffic into a long-term lock-up tool by constantly extending the vesting period.

When user sentiment rebounded, the project team introduced a governance voting mechanism in the form of "community consensus" to shift responsibility. However, in practice, the voting power was concentrated in the hands of the project team or affiliated parties, resulting in a high level of control. Finally, some early participants were excluded from the airdrop list, with the project team freezing their holdings under the pretext of a "Sybil attack" but failing to disclose detailed justifications.

Whale Control

The reason OM has been continuously pumping for the past six months is due to its team's significant control. According to KOL @nihaovand, it is typical for the project to coordinate community buy-ins at three different price ranges to collectively drive up the token price. At the same time, the project team arranges off-ramp exits for the holders. The funds obtained after these exits are then used to boost the coin's price, laying the groundwork for the next round of off-ramp inflows.

Previously, there were multiple allegations that the MANTRA team held 90% of the OM token's supply. Cryptocurrency analyst Mosi wrote an article analyzing how a project with only a $4 million TVL could have over a $10 billion FDV. The answer was that the team controlled most of the circulating OM supply. The MANTRA team held 792 million OM in a single wallet (90% of the supply), and they were even too lazy to distribute these holdings across multiple wallets.

Related Reading: "Fake Circulating Supply, Pump-and-Dump: Exposing High FDV Token Manipulation"

What Is the Actual Circulating Supply of OM?

According to Mosi's analysis, the actual circulating supply of OM = 980 million (circulating supply) - 792 million OM (team-controlled portion) = 188 million OM

However, this number may not be entirely accurate either. The team still controls a significant portion of OM. They use these tokens to conduct a Sybil attack on their own airdrop, further drain liquidity, and continue to control the circulating supply. They deployed around 100 million OM for Sybil attacking their own airdrop, so this portion of the tokens also needs to be deducted from the actual circulating supply.

Ultimately, the actual circulating supply of OM may be only 88 million OM. The lower actual circulating supply makes manipulating the price of OM a piece of cake and also allows for easy liquidation of any short positions. Traders should be wary of shorting OM as the team holds a majority of the circulating supply and can easily pump or dump the price at will.

Mosi believes that Tritaurian Capital might be involved in the background of OM—this company borrowed $1.5 million from @SOMA_finance (@jp_mullin888 is a co-founder of SOMA, and Tritaurian is owned by Jim Preissler, the former JPM boss at Trade.io)—as well as some funds and market makers in the Middle East. These actions further squeeze the actual circulating supply, making its calculation even more challenging.

This might also explain why they are unwilling to release the airdrop and have decided to implement a lockup period. If they did carry out the airdrop, the actual circulating supply would significantly increase, potentially causing a sharp price drop.

This is not some complex financial engineering, but rather seems like a deliberate plan to reduce the token's actual circulating supply and easily manipulate the price of OM up or down.

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