Mantra of Misfortune

They say to find enlightenment, all you need is the right mantra. In crypto, mantras take a different form – chanted not for inner peace, but for lambos and moon shots.

Between April 13th and 14th, 2025, the OM token crashed over 90%, vaporizing $5 billion faster than morning dew under a desert sun.

A project once strutting as the poster child of regulated RWA tokenization now flailed in a toxic brew of blockchain receipts, insider wallet movements, and furious denials.

Just days earlier, champagne flowed at Paris's Shangri-La hotel as Mantra and Coin Telegraph celebrated together. Now blood flowed in the streets.

Like the ancient monkey keeper in Zhuangzi and the Parable of the Monkeys - who pacified his monkeys by simply reshuffling when they'd receive their nuts - without ever giving them more.

Mantra’s monkeys were about to learn that the magic isn’t in the promise, but in who gets to control the distribution.

In a game where insiders deal the nuts, does it matter what you're promised - if you're always the one left holding the empty bag?

Before April 13th – Mantra was riding high.

The $108,888,888 Mantra Ecosystem Fund had just been announced on April 7th, backed by a constellation of illustrious names: Laser Digital, Shorooq Partners and others.

Champagne-soaked photos from their Paris event with CoinTelegraph still circulated across crypto Twitter.

This wasn't just another shitcoin with a Discord server. This was a Dubai VARA-licensed platform – "the first DeFi protocol to successfully obtain a Virtual Asset Service Provider license" – flanked by institutional backers and promising to tokenize real-world assets at scale.

By April 14th, OM was trading at $0.58, down from $6.32 the day before.

A 91% collapse doesn't happen by accident.

While retail investors were still deciphering red candles, blockchain detectives were already connecting dots that traced back to the very partners smiling in those glossy promotional photos.

Seventeen addresses had moved $227 million worth of OM tokens to exchanges just before the crash, according to Lookonchain data. Among them, wallets linked to Laser Digital had deposited over $41 million worth of OM to OKX in a series of perfectly timed transfers.

The monkey keeper had been busy rearranging nuts long before the monkeys noticed anything amiss.

When whales move in darkness and insiders begin their exit dance, is it really “market conditions” that pulled the plug – or just the lights going out on retail?

Counting Missing Nuts

In the quiet hours before the market chaos, wallets were already on the move.

The blockchain never forgets - and what it remembered was damning…

One wallet, tagged on Arkham Intelligence as belonging to Laser Digital, deposited 6.5 million OM (worth $41.6 million) into OKX over seven methodical transactions beginning April 11.

Wallet Address that cashed out on OKX:
0xB37DBDec19737d52cDC8fD969B92bAA9e044f26A

Above wallet was funded by (labeled as Laser Digital? On Arkham): 0x84EE76Aa90C9bACb96FCF8748a0cCC0C8BA9f248

Another address had sold 4.25 million tokens, extracting over $26.8 million before the crash - and still held another 2.4 million OM tokens.

Wallet Address: 0x9a46e2DceB5bfaF90fe4D248d569D61cbFd01a28[

Laser Digital denies any involvement in the token crash.

But the blame game is strong when dealing with almost $72 million in liquidations and an over 90% price crash.

Like someone wiping down a crime scene, the wallets completed their work and vanished before the alarms ever sounded.

Was this panic selling… Or surgical extraction?

The timing was impeccable: dump tokens just two days after announcing a $108 million ecosystem fund, while investor confidence was at its peak.

The illusion of morning nuts kept everyone distracted—while the evening’s stash was being quietly emptied.

Mantra’s CEO JP Mullin would later blame “reckless forced closures initiated by centralized exchanges.”

But the blockchain whispered another story…

A story where wallets tied to the project’s biggest backers had already left the building.

Now the chain may write the final chapter - will the execs' script survive the ledger’s version of events?

When the Monkey Keeper Speaks

With the nuts redistributed and baskets emptied, it was time for the keeper to explain to his hungry monkeys why they shouldn't believe their own eyes.

As $5 billion evaporated into the crypto ether, the damage control machine kicked in.

According to Mantra’s Mullin, the crash had nothing to do with the project or its backers.

No, it was those meddling exchanges - closing positions “without sufficient warning or notice” during “low-liquidity hours.”

Convenient, given those same platforms had just facilitated the suspicious transfers now under scrutiny.

“To be clear,” he insisted, “this dislocation was not caused by the team, the MANTRA Chain Association, its core advisors, or MANTRA’s investors selling tokens. Tokens remain locked and subject to the published vesting periods.”

Laser Digital joined the chorus:

“Laser has no involvement in the recent price collapse of $OM… We want to be absolutely clear: Laser has not deposited any $OM tokens to OKX. The wallets being referenced are not Laser wallets.”

Shorooq followed suit: “It is important to note up front that Shorooq and Mantra have not sold OM tokens in the lead up to, or during, this crash.”

In Zhuangzi’s tale, at least the monkey keeper admitted he was reshuffling the nuts. In crypto’s version, the keepers swear the nuts are still there - despite the empty baskets staring back at the monkeys.

But the exchanges pushed back.

Binance pointed to “cross-exchange liquidations.”

OKX went further, citing “major changes to the MANTRA token’s tokenomics model since Oct 2024” and flagging “several on-chain addresses executing potentially coordinated large-scale deposits and withdrawals.”

OKX founder Star Xu didn’t mince words, calling it a “big scandal to the whole crypto industry.”

When everyone’s pointing fingers and no one’s owning the mess, is the truth just another casualty in crypto’s theater of deflection?

The Ghost of Reef Finance

Like a traveling monkey keeper bringing the same trick to different villages, patterns began to emerge across projects and years.

The plot thickened when the industry's most trusted on-chain detective entered the chat.

ZachXBT dropped a bombshell that reverberated through crypto Twitter…

"The two names I keep hearing tied to the Mantra incident are Denko (Reef Finance founder) and Fukogoryushu as they had allegedly been reaching out to a number of people asking for massive loans against their OM in the days leading up to the -90% crash."

This wasn't just another random rug pull. This was a pattern repeating itself.

Crypto veterans recognized Denko's name immediately.

The Reef Finance founder had been implicated in "similar market manipulation incidents" before Reef's Binance delisting in October 2024 and an $80M OTC deal with Alameda in 2021 that ended in accusations and finger-pointing.

The Reef Vs. Alameda saga played out eerily similar to the current OM collapse.

Alameda purchased REEF tokens at a discount, ostensibly for a "strategic investment," only to immediately send them to Binance where they were sold or used as collateral.

When confronted, Alameda insisted they hadn't "immediately sold all of the REEF."

When asked how much they still held, their response was telling: "What I have already said constitutes my comments on this."

Same monkey, different tree – but the playbook for distributing nuts remained unchanged.

Going against the grain of other’s allegations, Zach claims that based on his findings, “it was not Laser Digital or Shorooq.” He seems more honed in on Denko and Fukogoryushu.

Hours after ZachXBT's revelation, Fukogoryushu deleted his Twitter account – which had featured the disturbingly prophetic bio: "Loved tasting blood ever since I was a kid."

The alleged loan-seeking behavior suggested insiders knew exactly what was coming.

Rather than selling directly, they were attempting to extract value via loans before the inevitable collapse – a more sophisticated version of the same extraction game.

When the same players keep appearing in multiple collapse narratives, are we witnessing isolated incidents or a traveling circus of sophisticated extraction artists?

The Monkeys Revolt

The community response was swift and unforgiving - like monkeys who've finally realized they've been fed the same seven nuts all along, just in different arrangements.

One alleged investor's fury crystallized the sentiment: "I invested $3,500,000 into your RWA token, $OM. That investment is now worth barely $200,000, a drop of over 90%.”

He went on to state, “The supposed partnership with a leading UAE property company was a key factor in my investment decision - a claim that gave the illusion of credibility and legitimacy."

Another voice cut through the damage control with surgical precision:

"If insiders are telling you the drop was a mechanical mistake on CEXes, then their opinion is that the fair market price is still $5. If they're not buying now at $1 with their own money to arbitrage this trade, they're lying to you."

In Zhuangzi's parable, the monkeys never questioned the keeper. In crypto, the monkeys have blockchain receipts.

While retail investors raged, Mantra's CEO was already floating "recovery plans" in a Cointelegraph AMA – mentioning token buybacks and burns.

He followed up April 15th, mentioning a post-mortem will be released within 24 hours, with "verifiable on and offchain data" to prove "the truth is on our side."

The damage to trust, however, was already done.

OKX added a risk warning to the OM token page, noting "significant changes to the MANTRA token's tokenomics model since Oct 2024" and warning of "potentially coordinated large-scale deposits and withdrawals."

The RWA sector, once heralded as crypto's bridge to legitimate finance, now faced serious credibility questions.

If a Dubai-licensed project backed by institutional investors could experience such a catastrophic failure of trust, what did that mean for the entire narrative?

When the monkeys finally realize that no matter how the nuts are arranged, they're still at the keeper's mercy – is there any going back to the innocent days of believing in the morning's promise?

"Ruuuuuuuug... Ruuuuuuuuug." Not quite the Om mantra for meditation, but the one investors should have chanted.

Mantra's collapse isn't just another token crash - it's looking like a cosmic joke with a $5 billion punchline.

It is looking like a possibility that the monkey keeper didn't change the number of nuts, he just reshuffled when they'd be distributed.

Similarly, crypto's extraction playbooks don't change – they just don the latest costume of legitimacy.

While the industry evolves from dog coins to RWA tokens, the distribution mechanics remain unchanged – insiders eat first, retail gets the empty bag.

In Zhuangzi's world, the wise path isn't arguing with the monkey keeper, but recognizing the entire exchange for what it is.

When the illusion of morning nuts keeps distracting us from the evening's empty basket, will we ever learn to watch the keeper's hands instead of counting promises?

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