🥛 Mantra collapses 93% in 4hrs 💣

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GM. This is Milk Road – we bring you the best of crypto, so you're always the smartest one at the dinner table!

Here’s what we got for you today:

✍️ Mantra collapses 93% in 4hrs
✍️ What to look out for
🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Actually it's The One Threat That Could Kill Bitcoin w/ Jameson Lopp
🍪 One of the biggest NFT marketplaces is pivoting into crypto trading

Prices as of 2:00 PM ET. Click here for our Fear & Greed Index.

THE COLLAPSE OF MANTRA (93.58% GONE IN 4HRS) 💣

The collapse of Mantra ($OM) is being called “the Luna of 2025”:

👉 90%+ down.

👉 $5B+ wiped.

👉 All within 4 hours.

Source: CoinGecko

It caught most people off guard…but not everyone.

Some sleuths have been pointing to red flags within Mantra for a while now.

Here’s how it went down/everything you missed:

1/ The wallet

Over the weekend, a whale wallet transferred a total of ~$25M worth of $OM tokens to the OKX exchange, indicating a potential sale.

Source: @tokenmetricsinc

~$25M worth of sell pressure ain’t great – but it was WHO was selling that REALLY helped to trigger the initial panic…

2/ The whale

This whale deposit was linked back to someone from/associated with the Mantra team.

“An insider quietly getting ready to sell, while everyone is busy with their weekend” – say that out loud to yourself and tell me it doesn’t sound just a little red-flaggy.

Especially when you add it to the other concerning factors surrounding Mantra…

3/ A collection of red flags

They recently postponed their community airdrop 🚩
The team still controls ~90% of the total token supply 🚩
They recently changed the project’s tokenomics (rather quietly) 🚩
There were rumors that $OM was being privately sold (OTC) to insiders at 50% off 🚩

4/ The selling starts → the panic sets in → it all collapses

The market starts connecting the dots between the OKX deposit and the entity that made it → everyone starts selling $OM → this craters the price 50%+ in a matter of minutes.

Now, remember the rumors that $OM was being sold OTC to insiders at 50% off?

Yuh. Well, the theory goes:

👉 When the $OM price started tanking yesterday, these insiders panicked and started bulk selling their discounted tokens (now at a loss).

👉 This selling pressure is what pushed $OM as low as $0.40 (down from ~$6.15 at the start of the day).

👉 That’s a 93.58% drop within 4 hrs!

Source: TradingView

But the saddest part of the whole thing might actually be this… 👇

Even though $OM cratered more than 90% yesterday – its 12-month performance is still better than Ethereum’s (-29.47% vs. -48.33%). 😢

Source: TradingView

So what can we learn from all of this?

🚩 When analyzing projects, look out for red flags like: failed/missed promises, restricted circulating token supply, asymmetric insider control.

📞 It might be time to do a wellness check on the $ETH maxies in your life.

EXCITING TIMES COMING UP FOR AVALANCHE

Last year, we hit up Solana Breakpoint and saw some seriously impressive product announcements.

Big announcements = hype around the ecosystem

Well, we're looking forward to even more excitement and energy coming up at Avalanche Summit London.

On top of massive announcements, Avalanche Summit has also got a killer line up of speakers:

Big crypto voices like Anthony ‘Pomp’ Pompliano
Serious DeFi builders like Stani (Founder of Aave)
Massive crypto institutions such as VanEck and WisdomTree

If you want real-time alpha and front-row access to Avalanche’s next chapter, Avalanche Summit is the place to be. 🤝

Buy tickets for the Avalanche Summit happening in London

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR 📆

What’s the latest on tariff inclusions/exclusions? What macro data is coming down the pike? Which companies are reporting earnings this week?

Here’s everything you need to know (and more)!

1/ Monday – April 14

👉 Certain Chinese tariff exclusions were announced last Friday – we can expect the market to digest this and react as more clarifications are made this week…

Source: @EdLudlow

2/ Tuesday – April 15

👉 China’s Q1 GDP Data is released. Everyone will be combing through the data to see how the current trade war is affecting the US’ largest sparring partner.

🎙️ Solana co-founder, Raj Gokal, joins us on The Milk Road Show!

3/ Wednesday – April 16

👉 Fed Chair Powell speaks. The question everyone is going to try to get answered: What’s his outlook on the current economy – and when can we expect rate cuts?

👉 The World Trade Organization releases its global trade forecasts. Will be a particularly interesting read after all of this tariff hullabaloo (yeah, that’s right – hullabaloo).

👉 March Retail Sales data is being released. Was the market’s grim vibe for March reflected in retail spending? We’re about to find out!

🎙️ Co-founder of the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, James Lavish, joins us on The Milk Road Show!

4/ Thursday – April 17

March Housing Starts data and Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index data are being released – are people building new homes and is the US manufacturing industry in good health?

This data will help shed light on both questions.

5/ Friday – April 18

~10% of S&P 500 companies report earnings – including a bunch of big banks and TSMC (the world’s largest chip manufacturer).

This should help paint a picture of the health of the US financial & tech industries.

Source: @eWhispers

Alright, that’s everything on the horizon this week!

Mark your calendars 🤝

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

Ledn lets you borrow against your Bitcoin with zero trading fees. All you gotta do is deposit your Bitcoin as collateral and take out loans in USD or $USDC. Pretty darn sleek.

The tariff saga continues. Just days after announcing exemptions, Trump fired out a tweet that basically shouts “the tariffs are here to stay”. Not sure how this is going to play out but uncertainty is never good for markets.

Vitalik prefers Polymarket over Pumpdotfun. Why? Our friends over at DL News break it all down. - DL News

One of the biggest NFT marketplaces is pivoting into crypto trading. If this isn’t a headline that screams “NFTs are dead” then we don’t know what is.

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