Mantra (OM) founder hints at token burn program to revive the project’s reputation

John Mullin, the CEO of Mantra (OM) hinted at an expanded token burn program. The move aims to rebuild the project’s reputation and the value of the native token. 

John Mullin, the CEO of Mantra (OM), announced he is considering a wider token burn platform to cause deflation and revive the token’s value. Mullin clarified he is ready to burn his own portion of the team token allocation. 

To be 100% clear, I am stating that I am burning MY team tokens, and we will create a comprehensive burn program for other parts of the OM supply. https://t.co/Yy6GzRBbM8

— JP Mullin (🕉, 🏘️) (@jp_mullin888) April 16, 2025

In the initial burn, the rest of the team will retain their tokens. The project’s core contributors hold 16.6% of the supply. The biggest weight comes from legacy OM, currently vested in a special wallet. Mullin announced the terms of the burn are to be negotiated, but he will strive for a maximum amount. 

OM has a circulating supply above 1.8B tokens and no cap on the total supply. The burn will have to tweak the tokenomics in a way to reassure holders of the value of OM. The token is mostly used for staking, as well as to secure the positions of the Mantra chain’s 29 validators. 

After the market crash, Mantra DAO has not moved any OM to the market. Currently, Mantra DAO holds 95.52M OM, after moving 23.54K tokens for staking. 

OM has still not recovered from its 90% collapse and trades at a lower range of $0.77. Trading volumes are picking up again, at $1.7B in 24 hours, following a previous stagnation at $69M in 24 hours. The heightened trading activity after the price drop suggests some confidence is left for MANTRA, and buyers may be hoping for a recovery. 

The team has also not given any signs of shutting down the project. The OM token fell after on-chain signs of insider selling. Early investors sold a relatively small amount of OM, but enough to cause a panic and drive centralized exchanges to quickly close positions. 

Can Mantra rebuild OM’s value?

After the crash, OM trades at $1.4B in total valuation. Some of the price predictions suggest the token may return to a valuation of $2B. 

The most recent price moves also sparked hopes of OM returning to $2. Mantra Chain’s team is still preparing for a detailed report on why OM crashed, and how to avoid similar events in the future. What is known is that the team and early investors sold $43M OM during a low-liquidity weekend. Unlike previous periods, there was no effort to defend the price or inject additional liquidity. 

Currently, Mullin has not given additional evidence of burning tokens or a deadline for changing the project’s tokenomics. The main claim of Mantra’s team is that the crash is nothing like the crisis of Terra (LUNA), as Mantra did not have a stablecoin or any other way to boost value. The OM crash was simply due to a lack of liquidity, which led to doubts that the price was not organic and was most likely reflecting the effect of market makers.