Nomura's Laser Digital, which backed Layer 1 blockchain MANTRA in 2024, has discredited claims of massive OM deposits to OKX and supposed investor selloffs that shrunk the cryptocurrency's market capitalization by over $5.2 billion in hours. "Laser has no involvement in the recent price collapse of $OM," the company said in a statement shared Monday on X, adding that "assertions circulating on social media that link Laser to ‘investor selling’ are factually incorrect and misleading."
Speculation arose that a MANTRA investor sent millions in OM tokens to crypto exchanges, triggering a huge liquidation event that tumbled the project’s valuation. Lookonchain, citing Arkham data, said some 17 addresses transferred $227 million worth of OM tokens to trading venues since April 7. Two of those wallets — including one "0xB37DBD" address — were tied to Laser, according to the onchain observer.
"We want to be absolutely clear: Laser has not deposited any $OM tokens to OKX. The wallets being referenced to OKX are not Laser wallets," Laser Digital stated. Also, the Nomura subsidiary stressed that its "core $OM investment remains locked."
Furthermore, a spokesperson told The Block that wallet "0xB37DBD" doesn't belong to Laser Digital and attributed the flows to a separate matter. "The transfer from a tagged Laser wallet represents the return of collateral upon the expiry of a financing trade with a third party. This can be demonstrated on-chain by tracing the corresponding inflow and outflow of tokens related to the transaction," the Laser representative said.
MANTRA, a network focused on real-world assets, secured a strategic investment from Laser Digital in May 2024. The deal's financial details were undisclosed.
Meanwhile, OKX notified users of increased OM volatility following Sunday's sudden drop. An April 14 update said the platform had tweaked its risk controls to minimize potential market impact. The exchange added that investigations were ongoing to unearth the root cause.
So far, OKX highlighted changes to OM's token structure and pointed to suspicious trading patterns on several crypto venues. "Per our investigations, we have identified major changes to the MANTRA token's tokenomics model since Oct 2024, based on both publicly available on-chain data and internal exchange data," OKX wrote. "We have also observed several on-chain addresses executing potentially coordinated large-scale deposits and withdrawals across various centralized exchanges since March 2025." OKX did not specify the entities involved in these transactions.
OM nosedived 90% over the weekend, falling from $5.9 billion in market cap on April 13 to $697 million by publishing time, according to The Block’s Mantra price page. The team suggested that "reckless liquidations" from a large investor on centralized exchanges had toppled OM's value. The debacle also resulted in $71 million worth of liquidations, per CoinGlass data.
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