It was April 13th...
You know that date that makes superstitious folks wear garlic necklaces and call their exes to apologize just in case. For Mantra DAO, it became a spiritual experience of another kind — a cleansing ritual of billions of dollars.

In a move that would make even Terra Luna say "bro, chill," Mantra OM performed the DeFi equivalent of a cliff dive — from $6 to $0.40 like a badly timed cannonball. No splash, just a lot of people holding wet bags.

The Plot Thickens Like Stale Ugali

According to on-chain drama (our new favorite Netflix series), a wallet tagged “laser digital” was caught doing things wallets shouldn’t do unsupervised. Laser, now channeling its inner politician, says, "Sio yetu." In classic blockchain fashion, we know exactly what happened… but no one knows who did it.

John Patrick Mullin (Mantra CEO) came out swinging — not against shadowy figures, but at centralized exchanges, blaming them for leveraging like they're playing crypto Jenga. According to him, no team members sold tokens. No partners sold tokens. No guardian angels sold tokens. So, we ask: Was it ghosts?

For a hot minute, Mantra looked like the golden child of RWA—suited up, ticking all the right boxes, probably sipping green juice and talking about “community ownership.” But under the hood? A mess. The yield was juiced like a Nairobi fruit vendor on a hot day, and the tokenomics were basically “how to centralize everything and still call it DeFi.” Mantra holding 90% of its own tokens is like your landlord owning the air you breathe—and still charging rent. Add a 50% discount for insiders and whispers of leveraged market makers inflating prices, and suddenly it’s less “OM” and more “OMG.” The whole thing stinks worse than a matatu seat on a rainy day. Just like Terra Luna, the red flags were there doing the macarena—but folks ignored them. Lesson here? If your tokenomics are trashy, no amount of hype, influencers, or “guardian angels” can save your project. Do your homework. Boring is sexy in crypto.

Wallet Mislabeling: The Web3 Equivalent of "Oops, Wrong Number"

Apparently, the wallet that got everyone stirred up was mislabelled. That’s right, Web3 can give you self-sovereignty over your money but can’t figure out how to name wallets like “Not Evil Wallet #42.”

When asked if this could be prevented in future, Mantra answered with the grace of a car alarm at 3am: crickets.

Burn Baby Burn? Or Just a Bonfire of Hope?

Mantra says they’ll do buybacks and token burning — which is what every project says when their token is performing worse than a, gosh can't even think of something worse, the 13th, you get the picture. Meanwhile, 90% of the token supply is still controlled by Mantra, but hey, “That’s not an issue,” they said confidently, as the floor collapsed on them.

Meanwhile, they claim backers are still interested in loaning them more money. Probably the same people who keep investing in Nigerian princes. I got an email the other day from Prince Abefuongo of Obedan province, his father annoyingly left him 200M naira, but didnt have the foresight to give him a way to access the account, so he needed my account details to do a transfer and then I get to keep 30% of the money after sending him 10,000 Naira to initiate the transaction. I was in a Matatu and there was "Naira" I could do to send him money at that time. Nigerian princes, why are they like this?

Farming Airdrops: Get Wrecked, Now with Bonus Features!

There was an airdrop, but it turned out to be a scare-drop. Many who were supposed to get it didn’t, and those who did farmed and dumped like pro DeFi acrobats. What is farming airdrops, you ask? It’s where DeFi gods rain tokens from the sky, and whales catch them with stadium-size nets while retail folks hold up empty buckets.

DAMAC & the Billion-Dollar Awkward Silence

Now, Damac — you know, the real estate folks with that $1B contract with Mantra — suddenly became quieter than your crush after you confessed, fraternizing with her best buddy. We don’t know if they’re under NDA or under pressure, but a simple “we’re good” could have gone a long way. Instead, the silent yoga they are doing, silent but turning sideways dog?

Binance, the Mysterious Transfers & the Telegram Ghost Town

Funds were moved to Binance, allegedly for staking. But then, Binance said, “Yo, it wasn’t us. Must be cross-exchange liquidation.” Translation: "Karata huchezwa hivyo".

Mantra’s Telegram group also went rogue — bots started blocking new users while the founder was “asleep.” Convenient. We’ve seen fewer convenient coincidences in telenovelas. These toasters have already started disrupting humanity.

Supply Go Up, Price Go Down

An unexplained increase of 31.48M OM tokens also happened. Maybe it’s magic. Maybe it’s Maybelline. Either way, a 90% drop in one day doesn’t feel like healthy market mechanics — it feels like jumping off a boda boda while it’s moving.

Retail investors, as always, got the short end of the DeFi stick — the one with nails on it.

The RWA Space Needs Urgent Therapy

To all Real World Asset (RWA) projects out there trying to bridge the gap between tangible reality and tokenomics fantasy — here’s a 3-point plan before we all end up doing therapy in Discord:

1. Stricter Policy & Smart Contract Adherence
   No more “oops” with wallet tags or sneaky token mints. Let’s write contracts like we mean it — and read them like our portfolios depend on it.

2. Transparency on Token Distribution
   If you own 90% of your token supply, you're not running a DAO — you're just playing SimCity with other people’s money.

3. Stronger Risk Management
   Centralized exchange leverage is like inviting a lion to guard your sheep, then looking surprised when it starts eating them. It’s time to grow up as an industry.

In conclusion:
Mantra, you’ve given us an unforgettable episode in the DeFi drama universe. Next time, maybe don’t throw your community off the bus while saying, “It was the wobbly wheels, change the wheels and look under the hood before the journey.”

We’ll be watching. Hopefully not from the ER of another rug pull.