On April 13, the price of the Mantra (OM) token plunged from $6.30 to under $0.50, recording a loss of over 90% in a day. The event shocked the crypto community by wiping out more than $6 billion from the mantra’s market capitalization.
Many people think this is not a random market movement. Instead, they suspect it is a well-integrated “pump and dump” scheme, including centralized exchange with market manufacturers (CEXS).
Are market makers and CEXS working together to harm investors?
According to investor Anon Vee, the collapse of the mantra is an example of a textbook of pump and dump strategies. He explained that market makers often target lesser known tokens. They work with the project to artificially inflate prices and throw away the tokens to make a profit.
He compared the mantra to the Terror (TRB). This surged from $6 to $629 between 2022 and 2023 before crashing. Similarly, the mantra rose from $0.013 to $9, pushing the fully diluted valuation (FDV) from $20 million to $11 billion before crashing to about $0.4978.
“Do you really believe that mantra pumps and dumps are not planned? …it works best when insiders control most of their supply,” Anonbe said.
Cryptofluencer Leonidas shared the same view. He condemned Binance’s concentration exchange for playing an important role.
According to him, Binance helped promote OM and created hype to attract retail investors. However, as prices peaked, market makers and CEXS dumped tokens, causing crashes, leaving retail investors with huge losses.
“CEXS (like Binance who promoted it in the 11 post) works with market makers to raise prices, seduce them in retail stores, and then they throw them away in your face. That’s the only truth,” Leonidas said.
One investor revealed that he has invested $3.5 million in RWA OM tokens. That investment is now worth just $200,000. This is over 90%.
Arthur, founder and CIO of Defiance Capital, also expressed concern about liquidity issues in the crypto market. He warned that project teams and market makers often work together to maintain artificially high prices over the long term to deceive investors.
He emphasized that this practice distorts the real value of the token and creates serious risks across the market. Arthur called for more transparency and stricter surveillance to protect investors.
“The biggest problem currently plaguing the liquid crypto market is the complete black box of how projects and market makers work together to create artificial prices that can last for a very long time. If big companies in the industry do not step up to improve this, the majority of the market will remain foreseeable future uninvestment,” warned Arthur.
Investors respond differently to mantra explanations
Mantra co-founder John Marine publicly denied the insider trading allegations. He argued that the collapse was attributed to “forced closures” due to specific centralized exchanges. He said the incident occurred during the hypofluid period, particularly on Sunday nights. This has made the situation worse.
Marine hinted that one particular exchange was primarily responsible, but he insisted it was not a dual agent.
Despite his explanation, the community questioned whether this was merely an excuse to cover up deeper issues within the project. Regardless of the mantra statement, many investors believed that crashes of this magnitude could only be caused by market makers.
“In this case, someone decides they don’t care if they want and the price is affected, and this crash is either a market maker going foul or an insider who decides to sell with their desire beyond the liquidity available.
At the time of writing, OM is trading at over 90% off the $6 dollar just two days ago.
Mantra (OM) price performance. Source: Beincrypto.
Nevertheless, some investors saw the crash as an opportunity. For example, Carl Moon, founder of Moon Capital, decided to buy a mantra (OM) worth $100,000 after a price drop.
