A top 20 cryptocurrency, Mantra ($OM), saw its price collapse by over 90% in just 24 hours which wiped out $4.5 billion in market value and triggered a wave of forced liquidations. The crash triggered widespread speculation about potential market manipulation and insider involvement.
To address the controversy, Coffeezilla, a popular crypto investigator, interviewed Mantra CEO JP Mullin in an explosive discussion that offered new insight—but also raised more questions.
Coffeezilla Interviews Mantra CEO
A 90% Crash Overnight
“Yesterday a top 20 token called Mantra or OM crashed 90%, leading me to search for answers,” Coffeezilla opened in his video. He collaborated with blockchain investigator ZachXBT to uncover what caused one of the biggest single-day token collapses in recent history.
Mullin was quick to frame the incident as a cascade of liquidations. “Effectively what we were able to discern was that overnight tokens that had been used as collateral… had been forced closed and liquidated causing this massive selloff,” he said.
Did the Team Dump or Get Liquidated?
One of the most pressing questions was whether the team themselves sold or were liquidated. Mullin stated: “We have published a transparency report… The team tokens are all long vested and have not moved… We did not sell a single OM… The team also did not get liquidated.”
However, he confirmed OTC (over-the-counter) sales by the Mantra Association to fund operations: “We have had OTC transactions for the Mantra Association itself to fund business operations… I’d say between 25 to 30 million USD.”
OTC Deals and Price Support
Coffeezilla pressed Mullin on whether Mantra used OTC proceeds to prop up the token’s price: “You’re saying you’ve never heard of the guy [Mr. P]… but this guy right before this huge dump is laying out a plan which doesn’t seem too dissimilar from what may have been happening.”
Mullin admitted to a type of buyback loop: “What you’re talking about… you sell tokens to somebody else… and then you’re taking the money that you get and you’re reinjecting it back into the token. That is exactly correct.”
Coffeezilla challenged him: “That’s pumping the price, yes or no?”
Mullin eventually conceded, “Sure, yes.”
Still, he was careful to frame these moves as market support rather than manipulation: “We’ve never put in levels or supports or anything like this. It’s more just a discretionary—this is going to be used to enter the market over the next, you know, you do a TWAP over 30 days.”
Who Was Liquidated?
Despite the scale of the liquidation, Mullin said the team still didn’t know who was behind it: “We think it was a group of people… We’ve been in contact with our institutional partners to try to figure out what’s going on, but we don’t know who was liquidated.”
He did, however, acknowledge that certain individuals had positions big enough to cause such an event: “I think it was in the size of hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Mr. P and Shadowy Market Making
A large chunk of the interview was spent discussing a mysterious figure known as “Mr. P,” who claimed to be a market maker and had been offering discounted OM tokens OTC days before the crash. Mullin denied any association: “We don’t—we’ve never heard of that name before.”
Coffeezilla pointed out the similarity between Mr. P’s strategy and Mantra’s own approach: selling tokens OTC and using the proceeds to support the price. Mullin admitted to the similarity but rejected the comparison: “There was no selling. You’re just buying. That’s correct.”
What’s Next for Mantra?
When asked what happens when these discounted OTC tokens unlock, Mullin responded: “We’ll continue to build out the ecosystem… and support as much as we can so that people have a reason to stake, hold it, and continue to see it as an asset.”
Still, Coffeezilla concluded that what was happening at Mantra was far from normal: “They were using OTC deals to support the price, which to me feels like kind of maybe how we got here.”
This article is published on BitPinas: “You Can’t Just Say It’s Nobody’s Fault”—Coffeezilla Confronts Mantra CEO Over $OM Collapse
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