Mantra Plans to Burn $160M OM Tokens to Boost Staking After 90% Price Drop

Mantra, the blockchain platform that focuses on tokenizing real-world assets, has unveiled a strategy to burn up to $160 million worth of its OM tokens to restore market confidence after the token’s drastic 90% price decline earlier this month. The burn proposal, which targets up to 300 million OM tokens, will significantly reduce the bonded ratio from 31.47% to 25.30%, aiming to revitalize the token’s utility in staking rewards.

The tokens to be burned include a significant portion from the 150 million OM tokens owned by Mantra’s founder, John Patrick Mullin, and staked during the platform’s launch in October 2024. The remainder of the tokens will come from other ecosystem partners, though specific details were not provided in the latest update. The burning process, which involves unstaking the tokens, will conclude by April 29, with all tokens being sent to the network’s burn address.

“The process of unstaking 150 million tokens from the Team and Core Contributor bucket is now underway,” the Mantra team stated in a recent announcement.

The decision to burn tokens follows a catastrophic price drop on April 13, when the OM token lost over $5 billion in market value in just a few hours. Mantra’s team attributed the crash to “reckless liquidations” by exchanges, with speculation suggesting that some investors were offloading positions during the sell-off.

Mantra’s platform facilitates the tokenization of real-world assets such as real estate and commodities, allowing for digital, compliant investments in tangible assets. Its OM token plays a key role in transactions and governance within the platform. Earlier this year, Mantra formed a partnership with DAMAC Group to tokenize $1 billion in assets, which briefly boosted the OM token’s value.

However, despite the planned token burn, OM’s price remains down 3.3% over the past 24 hours, highlighting ongoing investor skepticism. The token had seen a 400% increase in value in 2024, but recent market movements have raised doubts among traders.