MANTRA Chain has halted its network after detecting an incident that remains unidentified, freezing all transactions while its teams investigate, according to the project’s official status page and public statements posted on Thursday.
The chain, an EVM-compatible Layer 1 built around tokenizing real-world assets, said it stopped the network as a precaution. As of this writing, the cause of the incident has not been established, and the team has not said whether it is a technical fault, a security issue, or something else.
What MANTRA has confirmed
On its status page, MANTRA said there had been an incident on the chain and that it had halted the network while investigating. All endpoints and transactions are frozen, which means deposits and withdrawals to and from MANTRA Chain are temporarily affected. The status page lists the incident as “Investigating” and ongoing, and shows it affecting the chain’s public endpoints, validators, the MANTRA “Migrate” bridge operations, and MANTRA-managed IBC relays.
The team was explicit that it has, in its own words, “no root cause or timeline to share yet,” and said it would post verified information on its official channels as it learns more. It asked users who are unsure how the halt affects a specific transaction to hold off until the team shares an update, and to rely only on official MANTRA channels.
Token reaction
The MANTRA token, which was formerly known as OM before the project’s migration to a new native token, slid about 9% over the past day, moving against a broader crypto-market rally, according to data from CoinGecko as of 05:20 AM UTC August 21, 2026.
MEXC suspends MANTRA deposits and withdrawals
Exchange MEXC confirmed it has temporarily halted MANTRA transfers in response to the incident. In a notice posted on Thursday from its official customer-support account, MEXC said it had suspended both deposits and withdrawals of MANTRA “as requested by the MANTRA project team,” and said it would announce a resumption once services return. The action aligns with MANTRA’s own note that transfers to and from the chain are affected while the network is halted.
Not every exchange had published a similar notice at the time of writing; users holding MANTRA elsewhere should check their platform’s official announcements rather than acting on secondhand reports.
Watch for recovery scams
Incidents like this are frequently followed by fraudulent “asset recovery” or “unfreeze” services that target affected users. MANTRA urged users to avoid unverified recovery offers, and The Crypto Times echoes that caution: no legitimate recovery process will ask for private keys, seed phrases, or upfront payments.
Background
MANTRA is not new to sharp market events. In April 2025, its then-OM token collapsed almost 99% in a matter of hours; the project’s post-mortem attributed that crash to forced liquidations of leveraged positions rather than a protocol failure. The token has since been through a rebrand and a migration to a new native asset, and it trades far below its early-2025 highs. That history is relevant context for how the market is reacting now, but it is not evidence about the cause of the current halt, which remains unknown.
What is still unclear
Several key questions are unanswered at this stage: what triggered the incident, whether any user or protocol funds are at risk, when the chain will resume, and whether validators or bridge operations were specifically involved. Until MANTRA publishes verified findings, any claim about the cause or about fund losses should be treated as speculation.
Mantra identifies root cause
As of 09:45 AM UTC, MANTRA issued a statement confirming it has identified the root cause of the incident and contained the immediate threat. The issue was isolated to the Cosmos EVM module of MANTRA Chain and affected only two wallet addresses before containment was achieved. No user funds were exploited. The ongoing chain halt and upcoming patch are described as precautionary measures to mitigate any further risk. The team stated that the damage remains contained and limited, with remediations currently under careful testing and chain resumption potentially targeted within the day subject to successful verification. The statement ended with a note that a full post-mortem is expected to follow.
Updated at 11:45 AM UTC to add Mantra’s 09:45 AM statement.
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