Mantra Co-founder reveals: The $5 billion OM token collapses, and it really becomes "Luna 2.0"?

Guest:JP Mullin , Co-founder of Mantra

Original translation: zhouzhou, BlockBeats

Editor 's Note: The podcast discusses Mantra co-founder JP Mullin's explanation of the OM token crash. He expressed his sense of responsibility for investors and the losses of the community, despite the lack of malicious behavior. JP promises to provide comprehensive and transparent information and launch repurchase and destruction programs to support investors. He stressed the importance of transparency and continuous communication, and said that he would make every effort to repair the current situation and restore the health of the project. He thanks supporters and promises to strengthen interaction and commitment with the community in the future to ensure better development and response to investor needs.

The following is the original content (to facilitate reading comprehension, the original content has been compiled):

JP Mullin: I can't be happy about this matter at all. This is an unprecedented event, and many people have lost money and been hurt. I am also very injured. I feel that our community is injured, the coin holders are injured, and the investors are injured. Even if I did nothing wrong, I did not have any negligence or malicious behavior, I still feel responsible.

Host: I'm a little curious. You said the investors were injured, but if the current trading price was 70 cents, I was wondering if they were really losing money?

JP Mullin: I think they haven't lost yet. And because of this, investors who own circulating tokens have not sold them yet.

Host: I am the host Akuzhman. A lot of things have happened in the crypto circle recently. This weekend, the entire circle is paying attention to the tokens of a realistic asset blockchain project plummeted.

The chart we are now seeing shows that OM tokens plummeted by more than 80% in one day, with market capitalization evaporated by about $5 billion (at least on the books).

Many people are asking what happened, and hopefully we can find some answers today. We also want to thank the co-founders of Mantra for answering these questions and welcome John Patrick Mullin, JP for short.

JP Mullin: I am also grateful to you for giving me this opportunity to talk about this incident and how we plan to deal with it next.

Host: What has happened in the past 24 hours since you noticed this? How is this time going on for you?

JP Mullin reacts to OM crash

JP Mullin: This day was very difficult for me, for the team, for the community, and most importantly, it was particularly uncomfortable for the community. Maybe I can talk about how the whole thing happened from beginning to end, and slightly disassemble the whole story and our current situation.

I attended the Paris Blockchain Week last week in Paris. On Saturday, Paris time, I boarded a flight to Seoul, South Korea, and now I am in a hotel in Seoul. We held a summit mainly on artists here today, and I also attended it, so I can talk about this later. Basically, I went to bed around 12 a.m. local time. I posted a tweet at that time saying I was on the plane and there was no WiFi on the plane, so everyone thought I was on the way.

But in fact, I just fell asleep because it was already late at night. Later, at about 5 a.m., I was woken up by the hotel phone. Our team couldn't contact me, so we called the hotel reception. Then as soon as I woke up, I was directly smashed by a bunch of news: the tokens plummeted, something happened, etc. We immediately start checking to make sure it is not an attack on the chain, not a token stolen or other similar issues.

Liquidation triggers a token crash?

Afterwards, we communicated with some key partners, investors and exchanges, and soon found that the problem lies with the centralized exchange - there are large-scale clearing operations. The reason is that some people use Om tokens as collateral for leveraged positions, and there are also many positions that use Om to be long directly. These positions were forced to close in a short period of time, and it happened to be Sunday night in Asian time, with very poor liquidity.

I was still sleeping at the time, but these positions were quickly liquidated, triggering a price plunge, and triggering more liquidation and selling, which eventually led to this large-scale decline.

So I woke up in this state and we immediately issued a statement saying we were investigating the matter and promised to maintain communication and transparency. We have contacted all investors, partners, exchanges and community members to clearly explain what exactly is going on, what measures we will take, and answer any questions you may have, because the situation is indeed very complicated at the moment.

Host: Let everyone know - we didn’t actually communicate much before the show, we just made a brief arrangement. So I, like everyone else, just started to understand what was going on.

But I was a little surprised that you and your project Mantra have been around for a long time. So can we start talking about this plunge? Because many people may not know what you are doing. You are working on a Layer 1 agreement linked to real-world assets. The project base should be in Dubai, where you spend most of your time, in the UAE.

The core of your project is to tokenize real-world assets, but in fact, the OM token has existed for several years before you went online last year. It was an ERC-20 token on Ethereum at that time, right? So can we start from the beginning and see how this project has developed to the present? Because I think your tokens are actually circulated on several chains. I'm also quite curious who is selling the exchange you mentioned just now? If it weren't for your investor and the tokens were not sold by you, who caused this wave of market crash? Do you have any further understanding?

The founding of Mantra, token design and bridge

JP Mullin: I started with the founding of Mantra, so that you can understand the relationship between these two tokens more clearly: one is the early ERC-20 version, and the other is the later main network coin.

Mantra was founded in early 2020, during the pandemic, and we launched the ERC version of Om on August 18, 2020. So by now, the entire project has been around for almost five years. In March 2021, we went online on Bybit. At that time, we started as a DeFi protocol and also made some products in the early stage. We seized the opportunity of the first wave of DeFi Summer. It rose well at the beginning, but later it fell all the way like the entire market.

By 2023, our situation is actually very difficult. For example, in October 2023, our currency price once fell to US$0.017. Then from the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024, I began to meet with some of the core partners now, including Shorooq, a fund headquartered in the UAE, and Laser Digital, the crypto division of Nomura Securities. They have helped us introduce some institutional funds and have also promoted us to further build the concept of "regulated DeFi protocols".

We were still following the license process with Dubai regulator VARA. At the beginning of this year, we really obtained the world's first official license for the DeFi agreement. Our new Layer 1 chain is designed for the tokenization of real assets, with built-in functions such as compliance framework, permission management, and identity layer.
At about that time (end of 2023 to early 2024), we began to think about how to integrate the token model. Initially, we planned to make these two token systems run independently: one is the Mantra ERC token based on Ethereum, and the other is the AUM token on the new chain Omega that we originally planned to launch.

But later we took this matter to the community to vote, and the community wanted us to concentrate resources to support one token instead of two. So we merged these two routes based on the voting results, and since then we began to focus on how to develop an institutional-level real-world asset tokenization business in the UAE.

In the past month, we have actually released many major cooperations, such as cooperation with Mag and Damac Group in the real estate direction. At the same time, we have officially obtained VARA's compliance license and officially launched our own chain at the end of last year.

While launching the chain, we also started the cross-chain bridge process. Now, when the ERC version of tokens was launched, about 95% to 96% were in circulation, and now it is almost 98%. This ERC token is hard-top, with a total of 8 million. All of this can be verified on Etherscan. The wallet address and distribution are very clear. Many are in exchange wallets, and some are marked wallets.

Most of the token parts on the main network are still locked and entrusted in third-party institutions, such as compliant custodians like Anchorage, and there is also a mandatory attribution mechanism.

We actually just released a transparency report last week to respond to everyone's concern about the details of tokens. We will continue to provide more transparent information about wallets and distribution later.

Now ERC's tokens have actually been bridged to multiple chains, such as Polygon (via Polygon POS Bridge), Binance Smart Chain (OM version on BSC), and even the version on Base.

However, all of these are still within the original ERC total of 8 million. There is no new supply, and it is just circulated on other chains through bridging.

Host: I think this part is quite interesting. You "mirrored" the tokens on the old chain to the new chain, which means that if someone wants to transfer the tokens on the old chain to the new chain, they must first destroy (burn) the old one and then exchange it for the new one, right?

These designs are one of the important decisions that long-established projects need to be made during the evolution process. Now everyone has learned about the development background of Mantra and the situation where its tokens are now distributed on multiple chains.

Then let's go back to the core of this incident. You mentioned yesterday that someone might have built a large leverage position with OM on a certain exchange, and it was later forced to level it. In this process, a large number of tokens are sold by the market, and the market crash occurs.

So I would like to ask a few questions: First, have you further understood who operated this way? Second, which exchange happened? Third, have you received a notice before the liquidation occurs?

JP Mullin: We have actually been communicating with some exchanges before, such as asking them: "When were these tokens on the shelves?", "Do you know who the owner of these wallets are?", "Are these team members? Are they market makers?", etc.

As for this incident, we have been communicating with some exchanges in the past few months, and we didn’t start asking them in the past 24 hours. We will focus on which tokens have flowed into the exchange and whether they have come in as collateral. But these tokens come in from some clean wallets - clean wallets are those that have been transferred from other exchanges, have no historical behavior, and are not connected to the wallets we are familiar with.

I myself would tag all my wallets I know on Etherscan so I can track them at any time. But the wallets involved this time are all clean, unmarked, brand new wallets. That is, they are not directly associated with the team or entities we are familiar with.
We do know that some exchanges played a role in this incident, but it is not convenient for me to name it at the moment. We are now working with institutional investors and partners to evaluate whether there are legal means to use to protect our communities and investors because we believe they have indeed suffered harm and injustice in this incident.

It is obvious that this time, a large-scale forced liquidation occurred late on Sunday night in a low liquidity environment. We have not yet contacted investors who have been liquidated, but we have been communicating with some institutional partners, such as Cheroke and Laser.

Host: It should be noted that Cheroke and Laser have both publicly stated that they are not the main force in this sell-off. So you mentioned earlier that this incident occurred at a time when there is low liquidity, that is, the "inactive period" of the weekend, but in fact this is one of the reasons why the project parties generally cooperate with market makers - in this case, the market is stabilized. Can you reveal what market makers you work for? And, how did they deal with this incident? After all, this is theoretically the time when market makers should take action.

JP Mullin: We do have multiple market makers, and they themselves are our investors. We cooperate with some large trading institutions. On the one hand, they are investors, and on the other hand, they also hold OMs and have loan agreements with us.

But to be honest, I don't think their positions are enough to deal with this extreme situation. Based on our current understanding, this forced sell-off may be as high as hundreds of millions of dollars, but we do not have the exact number, which is also part of what we are currently investigating further. Once we obtain more information, it will be disclosed to the public as soon as possible.

Host: The position you just mentioned is about $100 million. Is it this magnitude?

JP Mullin: We think it is probably that range, it is indeed a very large position. OM is a multi-billion dollar token, with many long-term large investors who use these tokens to support other collateral positions and are also used as part of leverage operations.

And it all happened very quickly - I remember falling asleep at midnight and waking up at five in the morning, and it had been an hour or two. We responded passively without knowing it.

This is why we have always emphasized that this is an unprecedented, sudden and rapid event. We are also working hard to figure out more details and share them with everyone as openly and transparently as possible.

Host: I agree that this is indeed a very rare situation, especially during the low liquidity period on weekends. It's also clear from the price chart. What I am more curious about is that when the community is discussing on-chain transparency, everyone will ask, if it is not your core investor, who can establish a position of $100 million? This large-scale clearing event is obviously unlikely to happen completely within the transparent range of the chain, and many things may involve off-chain operations.

As a project founder, I know that these choices are complicated and you have to make decisions between many trade-offs. If you want to find a way to put the tokens on a centralized exchange and cooperate with market makers, you have to worry that they will not "back-punch" you at critical moments.

So we might as well start talking from 2024: What decisions have you made in the process of promoting the project online? For example, is there an OTC protocol? What is the structure of these protocols? How did you get to this situation step by step? Because we all know that before the project party officially went online, many tokens were already circulating in the market. Has all this laid the groundwork for today's things?

What happened before the project party officially went online?

JP Mullin: We actually conducted two rounds of financing for mainnet tokens, and these situations have also been explained in the transparency report we mentioned earlier. These tokens are still entrusted on the Anchorage platform and are locked.

The first round started in October last year, with a lock-up period of 12 months plus 24 months, and the release time of the other round is almost here, and the lock-up period of that round is 12 months.

In addition, some of our investors have purchased ERC versions of tokens through OTC, and these investors are old investors like Shorooq and Laser. Their wallet address is public and everyone can verify that they have not sold any tokens so far. The tokens were designed for an 18-month vesting period at the time and are still in full swing.

Our first financing was completed in February or March last year, and these tokens have been in circulation for a long time. But as we can see from the chain, no one is selling it. We have a group of investors with very long-term and consistent values. I am really grateful that they always support us in this incident and we will continue to support them.

So we completely deny the accusation that "someone is secretly selling coins" from the outside world.

Host: Regarding the "accusation" you mentioned just now, I want to clarify what we are talking about. Because I haven't seen anyone really publicly accuse you, I must be very rigorous as a reporter.

I don't think everything that happens in the crypto circle can be simply defined as "running away". Just like Terra's incident, I don't think it's running away. Many times the problems that occur are not malicious fraud, and we are not discussing those meme coin projects now.

What we are now discussing is that your team is building a Layer 1 blockchain related to real assets, and it is also working with many large institutions, such as the docking of other projects in Dubai before.

So I think it is necessary to talk about it. Where do you think the whole incident is going wrong? If you want to do a real and useful project seriously, what do you think is wrong? Judging from what you meant just now, it seems to be implying that there are any problems with a certain transaction.

In addition, in terms of numbers, the $100 million position you mentioned is basically equivalent to the trading volume throughout the day in many days. To be honest, the liquidation of this scale is very intense.

Where is the problem?

JP Mullin: I'm not suggesting that it's just someone operating. To be honest, we think it's the result of a group and multiple people acting together. We do think the core of the event takes place on a particular exchange, but we are currently working with all exchanges to investigate, hoping to find as much information as possible.

This is indeed an unprecedented event and is very sad for our community and we will do our best to solve this problem. I have also participated in many AMAs and Spaces these days, just hoping that everyone knows that we have not evaded our responsibilities.

Next, we will take some measures. The most important thing at present is to deal with the communication issues between public opinion and the community first. We also attended an RWA-based summit in South Korea this morning, and I was there in person because I wanted to tell everyone that we did not run away or avoid.

Our project has been in operation for five years, and we will continue to move forward, not only for five years, but may be even longer.

Repurchase and destruction plan preview

What we need to do next is how to repair the confidence of our community and coin holders. We are now actively considering launching a repo program. At the same time, we are also considering whether to destroy some future releases token supply. If these two measures can be implemented in combination, we hope to announce a plan to the public as soon as possible.

In addition to this repo support program, we also hope to provide as much detailed information and transparent on-chain data as possible, and use facts and evidence to prove that what we are saying is true, so that the community can verify our statements on its own and see that we are indeed dealing with this matter responsibly.

Host: There is a very realistic problem. Now the number of token holders in your token has actually increased after the incident - that is to say, many people only buy after the decline. Now you want to promote repurchase, and everyone will also care about: How much money do you have to implement this plan? Can you tell me about your current financial situation?

JP Mullin: I want to emphasize a few things: our current operation is completely healthy, with sufficient funds, and the business is fully solvency. In addition to existing investors, we have also received support from many new investors, including providing funds, participating in repurchase plans, and conducting long-term OTC transactions.

We are actively evaluating these options and will introduce a complete solution as soon as possible. During this period, the business will be promoted normally and we will maintain communication and updates. So from a financial perspective, we have no problems at the moment and will continue to move forward.

Transparency, investors and market makers

Host: You just mentioned "long-term OTC trading", and I think this is also worthy of attention. Because in the token trading structure, OTC is actually a relatively common but not very transparent way.

You mentioned earlier that investors like Laser Digital and Shrooks have locked their tokens, and they also publicly stated that they did not sell them, but the OTC transaction involves the project party selling the tokens to others privately, which may be below the market price.

This type of token later flows into the market and may also be regarded as "the project party is smashing the market." So I would like to ask, have you done a lot of OTC transactions before this project? Is the number large?

JP Mullin: We do have OTC transactions with some institutional investors, high net worth individuals, family offices. But these are all long-term lockouts, and in fact, no transaction has been unlocked yet.

We have set a number of restrictions in these agreements, such as prohibiting resale or transfer in the secondary market. We have also been working hard to ensure that investors are in line with our direction. For example, they will not hedge, they will not be short-term operations, but "long" holders who are optimistic about the project in the long term. We do not want any unnecessary selling pressure to appear in spot or perpetual markets.

In addition, we also attach great importance to the health of the entire secondary market, so we will handle all such transactions through our official approval methods. We do work with some brokers, and sometimes they will tell us that there are institutions that want to buy or sell, and we will coordinate to ensure that these transactions are conducted with our knowledge and supervision, and to ensure that the market operates healthily.

Host: I understand that you have a control mechanism, but back to the question just now: This matter has fermented in the market now. And I have seen your token allocation table. There are actually quite a few tokens in the early ERC-20 versions, which can be mapped to your main network new coins. So in this case, is it actually difficult to control the number of circulating tokens? No wonder someone can build a large position on the chain that seems valuable but actually has poor liquidity, right?

JP Mullin: It's not as difficult as you think. Judging from the data I looked at earlier today, more than 100 million OMs have been bridged from Ethereum to the main network. That is to say, yes, there are indeed a large number of tokens entering the market.

But we need to be clear: we do not sell these "highly liquid" tokens on the market. What we sell are those parts that are locked up for a long time and cannot be circulated casually.

Host: I understand that you don’t sell these circulating coins, but these existing coins in the market can be used by some people to build positions. So when the exchange sees someone on the chain using these tokens as collateral and making a large position, it may be worried: "These coins seem to be of high value on the books, but in fact, not many people are willing to take over or have poor liquidity." So it is forced to settle. Is this the core issue of this incident?

JP Mullin: Why do these tokens look valuable on the books, but are not actually worth so much? Is it because of liquidity? What we are talking about here is not locked tokens as collateral, but that tokens that can be circulated freely are taken to the exchange.

I think major exchanges have their own risk control mechanisms. Of course, we do communicate with some exchanges, but this type of liquidation should be a matter between the exchange and investors.

Usually this kind of thing does not happen overnight, but will have a continuous communication process. I did not participate in this specific conversation and it was difficult to comment on the details, but from what we saw, the liquidation action was very radical and rapid, so we were very concerned about this matter and were considering all possible legal means.

We are also working with investors to evaluate all possible options.

Host: I also want to talk about the token plan you announced before, because this incident actually happened shortly after your airdrop round ended, and you were still preventing "Sybil attack" at that time - that is, someone created a large number of fake wallets to multi-space airdrop.

As the founder, how do you view the relationship between this matter and the time point of liquidation? Has this exposed some risk signals in advance, such as some tokens may be mis-distributed to people who should not be taken?

JP Mullin: To be honest, I think it's just an unfortunate coincidence. We did the first round of 10% airdrop about a few weeks ago, and this round was actually postponed before.

Let me briefly introduce our overall token economic model: We announced our first airdrop plan in February 2024, when 50 million tokens were issued, with a total value of approximately between 5 million and 10 million US dollars. Later, this number rose to a market value of 400 million or even 500 million US dollars.

This also means that some of them are zero-cost airdrop tokens, which is definitely a concern for old users who spend money to buy them. So we have adjusted the locking rules and tried our best to balance the interests of both sides. Despite this, we still did the first round of airdrops.

At the same time, we also filtered the airdrop address, and this proportion is very large. We found that there were indeed a lot of malicious operations, such as hundreds of thousands of addresses trying to swipe airdrops, which is obviously not what we hope to see. We want to protect community members who really spend money and support the project.

We made the filtering decision in March, and this time the airdrop was 10% of the first round distribution completed about one to two weeks ago.

Host: So I would like to add, why do you need to protect the cost price of those users who really invest in tokens? Logically, it is to prevent people who get tokens without spending money from causing an impact on them, right?

JP Mullin: Yes, I think it's very important - if someone is willing to use their hard-earned money to support your project and your tokens, I really think it's my responsibility.

As a founder, this is not only my fiduciary duty, but also a responsibility I want to take from the bottom of my heart.

When we find that some people use loopholes to brush airdrops, seize resources, and then throw these tokens directly to the real holders who have been with us, this is a harm to our project itself. I can't allow this to happen.

Of course, this does not mean that we do not welcome everyone to participate in the airdrop. In fact, after our airdrop, more than 200,000 wallet addresses participated in the event on the main website.

These people are real users, and have passed our anti-witch attack mechanism and have not used false identities. They have made transfer operations and are still holding coins - we must protect these people.

Moreover, we not only protect these addresses on the main network, we also have more than 100,000 original coin holders on Ethereum, and this number is not included in the wallet address on the exchange. So overall, this involves a lot of users, and I take this matter very seriously.

Host: Since you said you take this responsibility seriously, as the founder, there are actually two key tasks: the first is to ensure that the locking mechanism is clear and implemented. Because some projects do not do chain warehouses.

The second is the rise in the token price you mentioned earlier. In fact, we have also seen this situation in the past when the market liquidity is relatively poor, and some market makers use extremely low funds to continuously pull up the market and push the price up.

Your project is quite special. On the one hand, there is an existing token, and on the other hand, you have launched a new L1 main network, which also allows users to swap between the two tokens.

So as the founder, are you nervous when you see these things? You have also said that you don’t want someone to take over at a high level. If there is actually not enough real trading volume or activity in the market to support the price increase, it is easy to form an inflated price.

From the perspective of the entire crypto circle, many founders and market makers are actually betting that their team can push up token demand in the future, exceeding the existing and future unlocked supply. Especially for projects like yours that have an original design with airdrop + unlocking mechanism.

So how do you think of this kind of game? As for this incident, how much responsibility do you think the founder should bear?

JP Mullin: I can explain a little bit about some of the adjustments we made in the token economic model this time, so that you can also be more clear about the entire background.

When we modified the release mechanism (vesting) for this airdrop, we actually adjusted the team's token release arrangements. The team's tokens are still locked in Anchorage, and the wallet address has been published, and it has been written in the transparent report we released.

At the same time, as part of the new airdrop rules, we have extended the token lock-up period of our team and consultants to one of the longest in the industry - specifically, 30-month cliff (no release at all during the lock-up period) + 30-month linear release.

You should know that I have actually received the original ERC version of the original tokens, but I returned all of these tokens and reset the unlocking period. So my current token will have to be locked for another six years, and I have spent four and a half years building the Mantra project before. We are here for the long term.

I will accompany this project through the climax and trough. This is not the first time we have experienced a storm. Of course I have to take responsibility for this incident. This time, we have never encountered any situation. I think there is indeed some malicious behavior in it, and we are also investigating what is going on.

The reason why I am willing to sit here for interviews with you, and why I went to Korea to attend the summit, and I have been communicating as openly and transparently as possible is because - this project is really important to me, and the community is everything to me.

We will continue to do what we should do and support the community to move forward. Whether it is good or bad, I have to bear it. Now is indeed one of our toughest times, but we will continue to move forward and continue to walk with our strong partners on the solid foundation we already have.

Host: I would like to ask again, what you said is new information to me, can you explain it? Because it sounds more like someone holding a large number of tokens and being liquidated, in my opinion, this may be just a market behavior and does not necessarily constitute "malice", right?

JP Mullin: I would say that the timing of this incident was very suspicious, and the whole process was too "uneven" and did not seem to happen randomly. It is unlikely that you will see such a big "waterfall-style liquidation" suddenly breaking out overnight. That's why we must investigate carefully and find out what's going on behind it.

Generally speaking, this situation cannot be "instantly". You know, if you have experience of being given margin or loan liquidation, you will understand that if you have been in communication with the exchange or lender, actively contacting, providing additional collateral or seeking solutions, the other party will not clear you all directly, especially it is impossible to liquidate hundreds of millions of dollars in positions at once.

That is a very large position and must be managed very carefully. Our feeling now is that this matter has not been handled properly, so we are investigating what happened, because this time it has indeed hurt many people.

Host: I agree with you, but this is exactly what everyone is concerned about, especially the relationship between market makers and the communication issues between you. From the perspective of our external observers, we can only rely on guessing. As the project leader, you are the person who is most likely to know the truth. So the core question is: How did such a thing happen?

Many people say that this logic is not difficult to understand - for example, the liquidation example you gave: If the price of a token is not formed by natural supply and demand, but is artificially pushed up by some participants, then when the price pulls back, the exchange may feel that this price is not real, the market does not have real buying, and once no one takes over, it will collapse quickly.

From this perspective, the trigger of liquidation is actually "reasonable". As the founder of the project, I guess you should be involved in these conversations about tokens, circulation, which exchanges to be posted on, trading volume distribution, etc. At least you should understand the operation of these relationships, right?

JP Mullin: To some extent, yes. We do have some exchanges that come involuntarily contact us and ask us, "What's going on with these tokens? Where do they come from? Why are these tokens used as collateral?"

They would send me a wallet address, which was transferred from a newly created wallet on another exchange, and it looked like a completely unfamiliar new address.

I can't make a decision and have no exact information to determine where these tokens come from, especially if they come from a centralized exchange. Obviously, we have partnerships with multiple market makers, and they are also our investors, and I am very willing to tell you who they are: including Laser, Amber and Manifold Trading. These are our investment partners.

I can say clearly that we have never worked with market makers for any form of "pull-up" or token price manipulation. We simply don't have that much capital to do this, and Mantra has raised limited funds in the past 12 to 16 months, which is not something we will do, and I'm willing to make this public statement.

关于代币的价值，你可以随便怎么评论，是否公平，那是市场来决定的。我希望最终能达成一个公平的市场价值，对于我们正在构建的项目也是如此。

过去12 到15 个月，我们确实得到了大量关注，执行也很有力。我们发布了很多重大公告，得到了很多支持。包括来自机构投资者、房地产开发商、还有像Google 这样的web2 合作伙伴的支持。

所以从尽职调查的角度看，我们通过了所有的审查。我们是一个受监管的项目，我们已经向监管机构和合作伙伴展示了我们所有的合规性，也一直保持透明，并且与监管机构有过沟通。

主持人： 如果这是一个由Vera 批准的项目，我很好奇你们是否与他们有过关于发生的事件的讨论？

JP Mullin： 我们当然是第一时间联系了他们。所以，我们一直在与他们保持联系。整体来说，大家都想弄清楚到底发生了什么。我们承诺保持透明，尽可能展示每一个事实和信息。

除了恢复计划之外，下一步是展示详细的事后分析，尽可能公开所有事实和信息，包括公共钱包等等。我们会将我们所知的一切内容公之于众，以便重新赢得社区的信任，并能够在链上清楚地展示我们这边的观点。

Shrug 已经公布了他们的钱包，Laser 也公布了钱包，我们这边也已经发布了我们的钱包地址。我们会继续公布更多信息，尽可能保持透明，我们并没有在回避这件事，我们就在这里。

Om 代币将如何发展？

主持人： 我想继续聊一下关于透明度的问题，正如我之前所说，Sheriff 发布了他们的报告，并表示这些被抛售的代币并不是他们的。说到透明度，接下来我们该往哪里走？Mantra 该走向何方？Om 代币将如何发展？因为正如你所说，现在围绕这些问题存在很多疑问。

在这件事发生之前，我在准备这次对话时看到过一个Twitter 上的讨论，一个人提到关于透明度的问题，你回应说，在供应方面我们已经讨论了关于这次空投的恶性循环问题。

你当时基本上回应说，"我并不是在做任何形式的拉盘，我也不是说这是坏投资，也不是说这是好投资。我们从一开始就一直保持透明，最近还发布了另一份报告给社区。」我有点想弄清楚你指的那份报告是哪个？

我不确定你是否指的是关于恶性循环的那部分，但主要问题在于，是否关于供应动态的透明度。甚至我看到Binance 最近也提到过因为担心供应量的增加而对OM 代币的上市进行了警告。我好奇你是不是在指这个问题。

我指的是之前你们展示过的透明度报告，那份报告中列出了不同的类别，我很高兴提供链接，这份报告大约是一个星期前发布的。

正如你提到的，在Mantra 的历史中，我们一直在发布关于OM 代币发行和供应的更新。这些都是从去年开始，当我们将ERC 代币和新链代币合并时，经过了治理投票和ERC20Mantra 社区的批准，整个过程都得到了验证。过去几个月里，我们也不断发布了更新，虽然现在没有这些链接，但我很乐意提供。

你可以看到这些变化的过程。我们与Binance 和其他交易所的合作非常密切，每当出现代币经济学的变化时，我们都会立即与他们沟通。如果有任何经济学上的变动，我们会通过公开验证的治理提案，或者通过媒体文章等方式公开发布，我们也会直接与Binance 和其他交易所分享这些信息。

我知道Binance 肯定是知道这个变化的，也正因为如此，许多交易所已经决定支持这个变化，Binance 就是其中之一。我们已经就此变化与他们进行过联系，他们对代币供应的变化是知情的，这并不是新的事情，早在10 月就已经发生了。

这件事确实让我感到有点奇怪，特别是你们提出的「按一对一比例进行镜像销毁」的想法。是否曾讨论过，如果现有代币供应量过大，是否应该考虑将其中一些代币转换？就像我们之前讨论的，OM 代币的供应量已经很大了。

我现在在查看提案，很多人提到这个提案可能是那种类型的提案，我记得你提到它有91 个投票。我记得你说过，在我们做这件事的时候，很多人说我们已经完了。作为Mantra 的领导者，能不能谈一下这个决策的过程？以及你是否会回过头来做出不同的决定？

JP Mullin： 我不会改变决定。其实，如果当时没有通过这个提案，我们甚至不会有Mantra 的Layer 1 链。

最开始的时候，我们打算使用Mantra 的ERC 代币，并且我们计划建立一个完全独立的L1 链，这个链将会进行某种形式的空投，回馈给OM，这个新代币被称为Omega AUM。

我们当时与投资者和核心团队成员进行了讨论，这些讨论发生在2023 年末和2024 年初，当时几乎没人听说过Mantra。

实际上，我们的代币跌了95%，很多人认为我们已经完了，对吧？然后我们有了这个几乎不可能的复苏，这次复苏也得到了OM 代币重新定价的支持，Mantra 的链也被推出，目标是为RWAs 提供支持。这些不同的叙事和我们所做的努力结合在一起，最终才有了今天的成就。

关于这个「镜像桶」（mere bucket），其实当我们为链创建这个新供应时，一切都是公开的，支持这个项目的每个人都完全知道这个情况，从提案一发布，我们就一直在传达这些信息。

镜像桶实际上是ERC 代币和主网代币之间的桥梁，我们有效地复制了现有ERC 代币的供应量，它也是可以在链上验证的。当人们将ERC 代币发送过来时，这些代币会被发送到销毁地址，目前已经有大约1 亿个代币被销毁。

整个过程是按一对一比例的可替代代币进行兑换，你甚至可以在Bybit 上看到，他们既有ERC 版的OM，也有Mantra 链版的OM，你可以存入ERC 版OM 并提取Mantra 链版OM，反之亦然。

我们设定了一个30,000 个代币的门槛，当你通过桥接发送代币时，这个数量会在几分钟内被自动填满，验证发送到销毁地址后，就会释放新的代币。如果数量超过30,000 个代币，我们就需要一个人工处理过程，通过一个多签钱包来批准并发送代币，这个过程可能会持续24 小时，确保一切是安全的，因为这涉及到巨大的资金流动。

即使我们启动时，我忘记当时OM 的价格是多少，但它仍然是几百亿美元甚至更多的代币存放在这个桥接钱包里。我们希望确保这不会成为攻击的目标。我们也希望确保人们能够正确地将他们的代币桥接到主网代币，这是所有新活动开始的地方，也是我们未来发展的方向。

主持人： 你现在回顾这个90% 的跌幅，考虑到那些可能在价格高得多时进入市场的人，现在的价格已经远低于他们当时的投资价。如果是这样，正如你所说，他们可能已经失去了他们辛苦赚来的钱。你觉得你和你的团队在透明度方面做得够了吗？有没有告诉大家这些事情可能会发生？

JP Mullin： 我确实感觉我们一直尽力保持透明。我不觉得问题出在透明度上。我确实希望继续保持尽可能的透明，让每个人都能看到，事实上我们没有卖出任何代币，投资者也没有。

主持人： 我认为人们并不一定对你们卖出代币感到不满，奇怪的是，我知道你不在美国，但美国证券交易委员会（SEC）最近发布了他们对透明度的立场。具体来说，他们指出，如果你们涉及加密货币交易，需要公开哪些是市场做市商，公布你们签订的协议，公布哪些人可能持有代币，以及供应量如何变化，这基本上就是他们的要求。

所以如果我们现在重新开始，考虑到OM 现在的交易价格是70 美分，而之前曾接近7 美元，已经降到原来的千分之一，你会怎么做呢？如果你想谈论这些协议的透明度，特别是考虑到这些大市场做市商或投资者的成本基础，这可能会对供应造成很大的压力。那么，如果你跟新的人交流，你会公开哪些内容？

JP Mullin： 我认为现在我们能做的最好的事情就是发布尽可能多的链上信息，展示代币所在的位置，具体发生了什么。

主持人： 这是关于链下的内容，像是那些协议和场外交易之类的，我的问题是这个意思。

JP Mullin： 我认为链下的部分相对来说是比较公开的，包括我们从一开始就公开的归属计划。

所以，显然，我们愿意尽可能提供与任何涉及货币协会的协议相关的所有信息。我们完全承诺这样做。你知道，我会支持这一点，我们会发布，但不能做到所有事情。

我认为现在，投资者会想知道到底发生了什么。很高兴你提出了关于链上和链下的两方面问题。我们完全承诺提供尽可能多的信息，我做出这个承诺。

Mantra 未来路线

主持人： 于接下来该怎么做，这无疑是一个大问题，显然也是很多人现在在关注我们对话的原因。

我想给你一个机会，谈谈你们接下来的计划和你打算走的路线，因为坦率地说，在此之前我没有听说过Mantra，可能是因为你们在那边，我们在这边，纽约和全球加密用户之间确实存在差异。至少我没有听说过太多关于你们的信息。

但现在，考虑到这个链上的现实世界资产，你说过你们的资金并不多。那么，当你提到回购计划并计划恢复时，我想说的是，甚至你可能也同意，现在几乎不可能回到之前的那些水平了。但你怎么看待回到那个水平的计划，以及你们现在能运作的资产？

JP Mullin： 当然，你知道，这种情况以前也发生过。我们曾经跌过超过95%，当时刚推出时，大家都以为我们完了，但我们成功回来了。我们知道我们会再做一次这样的复苏。

从创始人的角度来看，无论我需要做什么来确保社区得到妥善的照顾，我都愿意尽我所能。这对我来说比任何事情都重要，我们需要在这个艰难的时刻采取行动，恢复正常，支持我们的社区。

我们确实有强大的长期机构合作伙伴，我提到过，我们的公司是有资金支持的，业务仍然保持健康，我们会继续前进并执行我们的计划。事后，我们看到的机构兴趣非常强烈，真的很高兴看到这些。

我们承诺尽我们所能来执行回购计划，从我个人的创始人代币开始，我已经重新锁仓。这阶段我并不看重财务利益，说实话，一开始也就不是为了财务目的。所以，我希望确保我们能够重新启动这个项目，继续前进。

我们将与我们的合作伙伴，如Subaru、Laser 等共同制定一个合理的回购计划，同时创建一个销毁机制，让大家看到什么在发生并销毁任何不必要的供应量。我已经与我们的投资者沟通过了，他们也已经承诺将帮助并支持这一计划。

主持人： 你提到的这些点，想要确认一下这些流程的正常情况，你谈到的清算问题。如果有投资者的兴趣或机构需求，可能会在这种时候介入，你是说这些对话并没有发生，对吗？

我是指直到目前为止，关于需求的情况，你谈到的机构支持和投资者的支持，现在是处于90% 跌幅后的情况，对吧？

JP Mullin： 这事情确实发生得很快，几乎是一个晚上就爆发了。这是在一个星期天的晚上，情况是突然的，我们并没有太多时间反应。我当时也在睡觉。

所以我们显然已经与持有代币的合作伙伴合作，他们会继续支持项目，也有资金支持。但我们也吸引了很多新的投资者，他们对项目产生了兴趣，并且会继续支持，显示出他们愿意继续参与。

所以，看到这些新投资者的加入让我觉得很不错，大家理解我们已经做了很多工作，并且这不是我们第一次遇到这样的挑战。我们准备好再次站起来。

主持人： 说到这对你个人的影响，我也想问一下，你提到你已经在这个项目上工作了一段时间，我也看到你过去的访谈，从谈论Home 到去年主网发布前。

对于你个人来说，经历这一切，你怎么看待这个过程？我之前采访过很多创始人，包括Terra 崩盘后的Do Kwan 和FTX 倒闭后的SBF，我也采访过很多其他项目的创始人。

对于你来说，经历过这些波动后，你会不会有某种释放感？当然，我知道今天听起来你并没有感到松一口气。但从代币的波动来看，或许现在价格处于较低水平。像你说的，你曾经经历过类似的崩盘，是不是也有点「也许我们应该在这个点上」这种想法呢？

JP Mullin： 我不这么认为。你知道，撇开市场价值不谈，这不是我会感到松一口气的事情。发生了前所未有的事件，很多人亏了钱，受到了伤害，而我对此一点也不感到宽慰。

我感到很沮丧，今天对我来说非常艰难。我为我们的社区感到难过，我为那些亏损的人感到难过，我为我们的团队、一些外国投资者感到难过，真的是很糟糕。说实话，我感到非常难过。

所以，这不是我会感到任何松一口气的事。我觉得很糟糕，但我承诺会尽我所能，花每一分时间去修复这一切，做对的事，我站在这些话背后。我相信在过去五年里看到过我们的人，会支持我这一点。你知道，我会遵守诺言，并且做我能做的去支持这个项目，承担责任，不逃避。

主持人： 你说你感觉糟糕，我其实是想弄清楚是哪一部分让你感觉不好。显然，价格下跌是一回事，但听起来你说这不是你的错。所以，如果有某个部分是让你感到不好，除了价格外，具体是哪部分呢？

因为听起来你说你并没有抛售，你的投资者也没有。那么，从外部看，特别是那些不在Mantra 生态系统中的人，你觉得自己做错了什么？

JP Mullin： 我感到难过的是那些因为相信这个项目、相信这个代币的人，结果他们亏了钱，他们没参与这次事件，结果一觉醒来，代币就下跌了80%，90%。这真的很糟糕，我为支持我们的那些人感到难过。

主持人： 其中一部分责任是在你身上的吧？我想如果我能最后明确一点，就是你究竟是在哪部分感到难过？是关于你做了什么事吗？

JP Mullin： 他们相信我，他们相信这个项目，结果他们在这当中亏了钱。就像我说的，这让我感觉到作为一个负责任的创始人，我有责任照顾代币持有者和我们的支持者。我无法避免，我就是为他们感到难过，坦白说，我也不知道还能怎么说。

我觉得很伤心。我感觉我们的社区受到了伤害，我们的代币持有者受到了伤害，我们的基础也受到了伤害。我觉得自己负有责任，即使我没有做任何疏忽或恶意的事情，但我还是感到责任重大。

主持人： 好奇的是，如果你的投资者受伤了，我想知道他们是否真的亏损了，即便现在代币交易价格是0.7 美元。

JP Mullin： 我觉得他们并没有亏损，这也是为什么那些持有流动性代币的投资者，至今还没有卖出任何流动性代币的原因。

主持人： 所以可能他们并没有受到太多影响，而是那些后面才进来的人受到的影响更大，正如你所说，这就是我们为什么会进行这些对话，为什么我们来和你聊聊。也许如果我们早些时候就谈过，或许就能让更多人了解项目的真实情况。再说一遍，我现在才开始了解你们正在做的事情，以及它如何与现实世界资产相关，显然这是一个非常热门的领域。

听起来你也已经熬了很长时间，处理接下来发生的事情。那最后一句话，你对那些持有这个代币的人想说些什么？

JP Mullin： 首先，我想感谢你们，让我们有机会出来分享我们的立场。再次重申，我们会制定一个计划，确保完全透明，公开发生了什么，在哪些地方出了问题。

所以，大家可以关注我个人的推特以及我们公司的推特账号，所有这些信息都会发布出来。我们也会在接下来的几天内推出我们的回购和销毁计划，确保我们尽一切努力支持投资者。我们会与社区保持持续沟通。再次保证，社区朋友们，我们会尽一切可能来纠正这个局面。

感谢那些支持我们并积极联系的人，非常感谢你们。这对我们意义重大。对于那些此刻对我们表示怀疑的人，我们会继续尽最大努力工作，并会变得比以往更强大。

主持人： 我非常感激。我认为，有时人们不愿意保持信息透明，不愿意让大家了解最新情况。而这次情况相对独特，尤其是周末发生的事件。因此，我认为让人们知道你所知道的一切，正是这个领域所期望的透明度。