MANTRA Chain Halted After Incident in Cosmos EVM Module

MANTRA announced a halt of its Layer 1 blockchain on Aug 20 at 8:10 p.m. ET, citing an incident in the Cosmos EVM module. The freeze stopped all endpoints and transactions, and the network has not resumed operation.

Incident Details

The team later clarified that the issue was isolated to the Cosmos EVM module and impacted two wallet addresses that are managed by MANTRA. According to the status page, there is no indication that user, exchange, or partner funds were affected, and no user funds were exploited. The amount involved and whether any assets left the wallets were not disclosed.

Impact on Tokens and DeFi

The MANTRA token, which was redenominated in March, fell to a record low of $0.0041 shortly before the halt was announced. By the following day it recovered slightly to $0.0048, representing a 4 % decline over 24 hours, with a market cap of $26.9 million and 24‑hour volume of $30.3 million.

DeFi value locked on the chain dropped sharply, from $548,575 (mostly stablecoins) on Aug 20 to $5,159 on Aug 21, reflecting the lack of settled transactions.

Background and Related Events

MANTRA’s chain runs on a Cosmos SDK stack with an EVM compatibility layer. This is the second security‑related event linked to the Cosmos EVM codebase in the past seven months. In January, another Cosmos‑based chain (Saga) suffered a $7 million loss due to a bug in the ICS20 precompile, which was later fixed in March.

Acquisition and Regulatory Context

Inveniam Capital Partners is in the process of acquiring MANTRA, a deal announced in June and expected to close in the third quarter, subject to customary conditions. MANTRA operates under a Virtual Asset Service Provider license from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.

Next Steps

MANTRA is testing a patched release on its DuKong testnet and coordinating a restart with validator partners. No specific timeline for chain resumption has been provided.