John Patrick Mullin, the founder and CEO of the real-world asset Layer 1 blockchain MANTRA, said he will burn 150 million of his OM tokens, worth about $82 million, to help rebuild trust in the network. The decision comes after OM’s value crashed over 90% on April 13, wiping out more than $5 billion in market capitalization.
The OM token’s sudden drop happened in just a few hours and left the community shaken. In response, Mullin said the token burn is meant to show his “unwavering focus” on building the project and restoring faith in the ecosystem. The tokens are currently staked and will be unstaked by April 29, after which they’ll be sent to the network’s burn address.
Burning tokens means removing them from circulation forever, which could help reduce supply and potentially improve the value for remaining holders.
“There were no $OM sales by the MANTRA team during this period of market distress,” Mullin said on X, denying that the team had anything to do with the token’s fall.
MANTRA also announced that it is in talks with partners to possibly increase the number of burned tokens to 300 million, which would make up around 16.5% of the total 1.8 billion OM tokens. This move, the team says, would lower the bonded ratio from 31.47% to 25.30%, which could lead to better staking rewards for users.
The company blamed the crash on “reckless liquidations,” while Laser Digital, an investor in the project, said it had no involvement in the event. Mullin also posted a poll on X asking users if they supported the token burn plan. Over 8,000 people voted, with more than 81% in favor of burning the tokens right away.
Following the announcement, OM’s price briefly went up before slipping again. As of the latest update, it’s down 4% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.
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