Catenaa, Friday, May 02, 2025-John Patrick Mullin, founder and CEO of MANTRA, said he will burn 150 million OM tokens — valued at $82 million — in an attempt to restore confidence after the Layer 1 blockchain’s token collapsed more than 90% in a matter of hours on April 13, erasing over $5 billion in market capitalization.
The move, announced a week ago, comes amid growing scrutiny of MANTRA’s handling of the crash. The platform blamed “reckless liquidations” for the price plunge, while its investor Laser Digital denied involvement.
Mullin said the token burn demonstrates his “unwavering focus” on rebuilding trust and reiterated that no team sales occurred during the price drop.
“We are confident that further information from our centralized exchange partners will provide more clarity on these events,” Mullin wrote on X.
MANTRA said it is also in talks with ecosystem partners to potentially double the total burn to 300 million tokens — around 16.5% of the 1.8 billion OM supply. The company said such a burn would decrease the bonded ratio from 31.47% to 25.30%, boosting staking rewards for remaining holders.
The 150 million tokens will take until April 29 to unstake, after which they will be permanently removed via transfer to the network’s burn address. A user poll on X showed over 81% supported the burn plan.
OM saw a brief price uptick after the announcement but is down 2.7% over the past 24 hours, according to The Block.
