Mantra CEO Pledges to Burn His Crew Tokens After Main 90% OM Crash – Decrypt

The co-founder and CEO of Mantra has pledged to burn all of his allotted “workforce tokens” in a bid to revive religion within the mission, days after its OM token crashed 90% in an hour.

Mantra co-founder and CEO John Patrick Mullin tweeted Tuesday that he would burn all of his tokens from the “Crew and Core Contributor” allocation, which begins vesting in April 2027.

“I’m planning to burn all of my workforce tokens and once we flip it across the group and buyers can resolve if I’ve earned it again,” he stated, including that, “We’ll create a complete burn program for different elements of the OM provide.”

The precise particulars on the dimensions of the burn continues to be being labored out, Mullin confirmed in a reply, however he desires it to be “as giant as [he] can presumably make it.” He added that different workforce members have additionally reached out to him in help of the burn plan.

The Mantra crash

Mantra’s OM token dived from $6 to under $0.4 in simply an hour late Sunday, with its workforce blaming “reckless liquidations” for the crash. Per archived CoinGecko information, OM was the twenty third largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $6.46 billion on Friday, forward of the likes of Litecoin, Polkadot, and Hyperliquid. Now, it has fallen out of the highest 100, with a market cap of simply $740 million.

Mantra is a layer-1 blockchain designed for tokenizing real-world property, with a give attention to regulatory compliance, having partnered with the likes of Google Cloud and Dubai property improvement firm DAMAC Group.

In an official assertion, Mantra denied that Sunday’s crash had “something to do with the mission” and its workforce, with Mullin suggesting in an interview with crypto detective Coffeezilla that the liquidations came about on a significant centralized trade. 

The Mantra workforce “didn’t promote a single OM,” Mullin advised Coffeezilla, including that, “The workforce additionally didn’t get liquidated, we don’t have leverage positions on exchanges, we don’t do this.” He argued that it was possible there have been lots of people (or teams of individuals) with giant quantities of capital in OM.

Nevertheless, some have raised considerations over Mantra’s use of over-the-counter offers, with Coffeezilla alleging that they have been used to artificially inflate OM’s value. 

Mullin admitted that Mantra bought $20 to $30 million value of OM over-the-counter to an unnamed group or particular person and used the funds to carry out $5 to $10 million value of buybacks by way of its market makers. Coffeezilla framed this as value manipulation, whereas Mullin claimed this was merely finished to take care of a wholesome market in low liquidity situations.

“This isn’t a buyback to pump, that is extra of a ‘ensure that it may be supported’,” the CEO stated. “We’ve by no means put in ranges of help or something, it’s extra only a discretionary: that is going for use to enter the market over the subsequent 30 days, or one thing.”

“That may have a optimistic affect on the value however I gained’t essentially say that can ‘pump’ the value,” Mullin added. “You should utilize bids to do a number of various things. It may be to guard draw back, it will also be to help to the upside.”

The co-founder stated these efficient purchase backs came about from its launch in April till early fall, a interval by which the token solely elevated by 58%, in keeping with CoinGecko information.