The founder and CEO of MANTRA, John Patrick Mullin, has pledged to burn his entire allocation of 150 million OM tokens, worth approximately $82 million at current prices, in response to a dramatic crash that wiped out over $5 billion in market value on April 13.
The real-world asset-focused Layer-1 protocol saw its token plunge by more than 90% in a matter of hours, sending shockwaves through the DeFi ecosystem.
In an official post, Mullin said the burn was part of a broader effort to “rebuild trust” and reaffirm the project’s long-term commitment. The token burn commenced with the unstaking of 150 million OM tokens, which were originally staked during MANTRA’s October 2024 mainnet launch.
These tokens are expected to be fully unstaked by April 29, at which point they will be sent to a designated burn address and permanently removed from circulation.
@jp_mullin888 CEO and Founder is burning his allocation of team tokens. For more and why, read on.https://t.co/Ttll5gPj3S pic.twitter.com/QpmqkNB6Jy
— MANTRA | Tokenizing RWAs (@MANTRA_Chain) April 21, 2025
Total Burn May Reach 300 Million Tokens
MANTRA is also in talks with key ecosystem partners to coordinate an additional 150 million OM token burn, which would bring the total burned amount to 300 million OM—about 16.5% of the token’s total supply of 1.82 billion.
The first phase alone would reduce the staked OM tokens from 571.8 million to 421.8 million, decreasing the bonded ratio from 31.47% to 25.30%. This lower bonded ratio is expected to boost staking APRs and incentivize network participation. The total supply would drop to 1.67 billion OM following the full 300 million token burn.
Community Reaction and Market Response
Mullin conducted a poll on X, where over 81% of respondents voted in favor of immediately burning the tokens. Despite the burn announcement, OM’s price continued to decline, falling nearly 8% in the last 24 hours to around $0.52. Over the past month, OM is down more than 91%.
The crash itself was attributed to “reckless liquidations,” with Laser Digital, an investor in MANTRA, publicly denying any role. The MANTRA team also emphasized that no OM sales had been executed by team members during the market turbulence.
MANTRA has committed to complete transparency throughout the burn process, providing on-chain transaction hashes for community verification and review. Once the burn is finalized, full verification data will be made publicly available.
