After the OM token crash and long-term market pressure made its business model weak in 2025, RWA blockchain Mantra is restructuring and laying off workers.
Mantra, a blockchain project that focuses on real-world assets (RWAs), is changing how it works after what its leaders called the worst year in the company’s existence. This year saw a dramatic drop in the value of its tokens and long-term market pressure.
John Patrick Mullin, the CEO of Manta, said on Wednesday that the company would change to a smaller and more capital-efficient structure after a time of growth. Some teams may lose jobs, and operations will be streamlined to better fit the current market conditions.
Mullin wrote, I take full responsibility for these choices and for the path that brought us here. I understand that this is a challenging situation, particularly for the individuals directly impacted, their families, and the entire MANTRA team. I really feel bad for those who are leaving us.
Source: John Patrick Mullin
Strategic reset prioritises execution over expansion
Mullin claimed that the restructure was mostly due to a bigger strategic reset, not just a focus on cutting costs.
Mullin informed that they are “doubling down” on it and that their layer-1 chain, mantraUSD, and Mantra Finance are their top priorities.
OM token collapse intensified financial pressure
The restructure comes after a sharp drop in the value of Mantra’s OM token that started early last year.
CoinGecko says that the OM coin hit an all-time high of $8.99 on February 23, 2025, but then fell dramatically to $0.59 by April 15. It is still almost 99% below its former high before the crash.
On April 30, Mantra said that the OM meltdown was caused by aggressive leverage policies on centralised exchanges. They also warned that liquidation cascades were a systemic risk to crypto projects.
Mullin noted at the time that the event was bigger than Mantra and urged exchanges to rethink how they use leverage on native tokens.
Governance reforms failed to offset prolonged downturn
After the fall, Mantra said it will take a number of steps to improve governance and transparency. These included efforts to decentralise validators, the launch of a real-time tokenomics dashboard, and burning 150 million staked OM tokens to lower the supply.
Even with those steps, the project’s finances were nevertheless hurt by the long downturn. Mullin said that Mantra’s costs had gotten too high for the present market, which is why the company decided to downsize people and focus on fewer things.
Exchange disputes add to operational challenges
The restructure also follows months of strained relations between the corporation and the Bitcoin market OKX.
Mullin told OM holders to take their tokens out of OKX on December 8 because he said the information about a token migration was wrong. OKX disagreed with the assertions, stating it had proof that the market was acting in concert before the meltdown in April.
focusingMullin added that the layoffs had a bigger impact on business development, marketing, human resources, and other support services than on other areas of the organisation, because the company is focussing its resources on core execution.