MANTRA token plunges 18.5% to record low after network halt

MANTRA's OM token hit an all-time low of $0.004126 after the blockchain halted all activity following a software exploit.

MANTRA's OM token fell 18.5% to a record low of $0.004126 after the blockchain halted block production following a software exploit in an upstream dependency.

"We're aware of an incident affecting MANTRA Chain and have halted the chain as a precaution while we investigate," the team said in an X post. "All endpoints and transactions are currently frozen."

The token fell from $0.005060 to $0.004126 around 11:10 p.m. UTC Thursday, according to CoinGecko. It later recovered to about $0.0044 but remained down roughly 10 percent over 24 hours, while trading volume jumped nearly 600 percent to $24 million. The network produced its last block at 11:13 p.m. UTC, minutes after the token touched its low.

The halt freezes all deposits, withdrawals, bridge operations and Inter-Blockchain Communication relays on MANTRA Chain, with no timeline for restoration. The incident follows the April 2025 collapse of the former OM token, which lost more than 90 percent of its value and erased over $5 billion in market cap, and comes as Inveniam Capital Partners' acquisition of the project is expected to close in the third quarter.

MANTRA later identified the cause as an attacker exploiting a vulnerability in an "upstream dependency," meaning software used by MANTRA Chain but developed outside the network itself. "We have identified the vulnerability and are proceeding to prepare a patched release," the team said. The project has not disclosed which software was exploited, how the attack worked, or whether any assets were lost.

The network's public RPC listed block 17,449,398, produced at 11:13 p.m. UTC Thursday, as its latest block. MANTRA posted its initial incident notice at 11:44 p.m. UTC. The project has not said whether the price drop was connected to the attack, though security incidents can trigger outsized moves as traders reassess risk.

Affected exchanges, including Upbit, paused OM deposits and withdrawals indefinitely. Trading can continue on centralized exchanges because internal order matching does not require on-chain transactions, but users cannot transfer assets while the halt remains active.

MANTRA's status page classified the event as a full outage affecting public endpoints, validators, bridge migration operations and MANTRA-managed Inter-Blockchain Communication relays. The team said it would not restart the network until confident it is safe, and warned users against people offering "recovery" assistance, a common scam tactic during blockchain disruptions.

A History of Turbulence

The incident is the latest setback for MANTRA, a Layer 1 blockchain focused on tokenizing real-world assets such as funds and bonds. In April 2025, the project's former OM token collapsed more than 90 percent, plunging from about $6.30 to below $0.50 and erasing more than $5 billion in market value. The project attributed the crash to forced exchange liquidations.

In June, Inveniam Capital Partners announced plans to acquire MANTRA after investing $20 million in the project in 2025. The acquisition, expected to close in the third quarter, followed January layoffs and restructuring after CEO John Patrick Mullin described 2025 as the project's most challenging year.

The current MANTRA token followed a March 2026 rebrand and one-for-four token split, replacing the former OM ticker without changing holders' proportional value. MANTRA traded near $0.0045 at the time of writing, with a market capitalization of approximately $27.8 million based on CoinGecko's estimated circulating supply of 6.3 billion tokens.

The network halt prevents validators from processing new transactions, meaning users cannot complete transfers, interact with applications, or move assets through affected bridges. No independent security researcher had released a confirmed transaction trail showing stolen funds at the time of writing.

The next update will need to identify the affected software, establish whether the chain's recorded state remains valid, and explain any required patch. Validators would then need to install or approve the changes before block production could resume. MANTRA has not indicated it is considering a rollback, asset freeze, or chain state modification.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.