Cardano Creator Condemns Investing In Newer Crypto Projects Over ADA As Mantra’s OM Falls 90% In Sudden Crash

Cardano creator Charles Hoskinson has weighed in on the recent dramatic collapse of trendy real-world asset upstart Mantra’s OM token, underscoring ADA’s stability over the years amid serious concerns of a major hack or rug pull in the Mantra ecosystem.

Most Significant Project Collapse Since The LUNA Crisis

The token of real-world asset (RWA) focused Layer 1 blockchain Mantra (OM) reminded traders of Terra’s LUNA on Sunday when it abruptly collapsed by 90% within hours.

OM plunged from over $6 to 37 cents on no sudden catalyst. At the time of writing, the token has staged a minor recovery in the aftermath of the collapse, returning to around 71 cents, CoinGecko data shows. Even so, it’s still down 92% from its February all-time high of $8.99.

The project rebuffed circulating allegations that the MANTRA team offloaded their bag, insisting that the bizarre selloff was “triggered by reckless liquidations.”

“We want to assure you that MANTRA is fundamentally strong,” the team claimed in an X post following the price drop. “Today’s activity was triggered by reckless liquidations, not anything to do with the project. One thing we want to be clear on: this was not our team. We are looking into it and will share more details about what happened as soon as we can.”

MANTRA co-founder John Patrick Mullin further added that all team and investor tokens are still locked according to their publicly disclosed vesting schedules. He also asserted that the OM token’s fundamental tokenomics remain unchanged.

Hoskinson Slams Cardano Critics

Reacting to the fallout of Mantra’s OM tokens, Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson appeared to ridicule key opinion leaders (KOL) who labeled ADA a “dinochain” or “ghost chain” while lauding a dollar-cost average (DCA) into the “next big thing” like OM.

Cardano is often mocked as a “ghost chain”, meaning its on-chain activity is minimal, which is usually met with strong pushback from its adherents.

As per Hoskinson, the sharp collapse of the OM token highlights Cardano’s reliability. While the project initially relied heavily on the executive’s Input Output Global, it has since transitioned toward a community-driven model. January’s Plomin hard fork activated full-decentralized governance mechanisms for ADA investors, followed by the creation of its own on-chain constitution in February.