Crypto's Fresh $5 Billion Disaster
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THE OM COLLAPSE
Just last week, Mantra's OM token looked great: up over 800% year‑on‑year, a fresh $108 million ecosystem fund and a $1 billion Dubai real‑estate deal (Mantra is a blockchain for tokenizing physical assets like buildings and art) in the pipeline. Then, over last Sunday, its price cratered more than 90% from around $6.3 to below $0.5, erasing over $5.4 billion in value and sending traders hunting for villains.
The problem wasn't a clever exploit. Blockchain analysts flagged 17 wallets moving 43.6 million OM (about $227 million) to exchanges Binance and OKX in the days leading up to the crash. Rumors of OTC fire‑sales at half price fueled the panic.
Once the selling started, liquidity vanished. Traditionally thin Sunday order books couldn't absorb the flood, triggering forced liquidations of leveraged positions. By the time the cascade stopped, veteran traders were comparing the mess to Terra's LUNA collapse.
CEO John Patrick Mullin denied insider sales, blamed 'reckless forced closures' by centralized exchanges and promised a token buyback. Exchange OKX pointed to MANTRA's suspicious token economics changes and concentrated ownership. A high‑profile investor, Nomura-backed Laser Digital, also jumped on X to deny it was among the sellers after an analytics platform apparently mistagged its wallets.
THE NEW ORDER OF CRYPTO LENDING
The crater BlockFi, Celsius & Co. left in crypto credit hasn't stayed empty. In centralized crypto lending, the throne now belongs to Tether, Galaxy Digital and Ledn—a trio that controls nearly 90 % of what remains of centralized lending. The bigger shift, however, is on‑chain: DeFi protocols now originate just over half of all crypto loans ($19.1 billion of the market's $36.5 billion total), turning smart contracts into the sector's chief credit officers. Wall Street is circling too: Cantor Fitzgerald is preparing to wade into bitcoin financing. Read more.
TEMPERATURE CHECK ON TRUMP'S CRYPTO GAMBIT
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump vowed to make the U.S. the world's undisputed crypto super‑power. Four months into his second term, the sprint is on: SAB 121 is gone, freeing banks from punitive capital rules on digital‑asset custody; April's bill scrapped the nightmare cost‑basis paperwork for DeFi; and the DOJ has shuttered its crypto task force, vowing to chase scammers, not software.
Beyond holding a variety of crypto tokens in a strategic reserve and putting an end to prosecutions of industry players, the administration is leaning into bipartisan efforts to craft rules for dollar‑pegged stablecoins. So far the bet is paying off: bitcoin is up almost 30% since election night, and broader crypto prices have held firm despite Wall Street chop. Read more.
ELSEWHERE:
Donald Trump's 29-Year-Old Crypto Guru Lays Out The President's Plans For Regulating Crypto And Rolling Back A Biden-Era Crackdown [Fortune]
The Analyst Who Predicted Crypto's Latest $5 Billion Collapse [The Street]
Kraken Expands Beyond Crypto With Commission-Free Trading Launch [Reuters]
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