"This is not a case of harvesting retail investors."

Compiled & Edited by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Guest: JP Mullin, Co-Founder of Mantra

Host: Zack Guzman

Podcast Source: Coinage

Original Title: Mantra Co-Founder Explains $5 BILLION OM Token Collapse

Broadcast Date: April 15, 2025

Key Summary

JP Mullin, co-founder of Mantra, joined the Coinage podcast to explain why the OM token of the project plummeted by 90%, resulting in a market cap loss of $5 billion.

This Layer-1 blockchain project focused on real-world assets was launched last year, but the crash was attributed to a liquidation event at an undisclosed exchange. Coinage delved into the decision-making process that led to this collapse and analyzed why it raised concerns about transparency from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Highlights of Insights

• "This is not a case of harvesting retail investors."

• "I feel a sense of responsibility. Even if I had no negligence or malicious intent, they trusted me… but lost money because of it."

• "I'm not blaming a single person; in fact, I believe this is a collective action involving multiple individuals. We believe this incident revolves around a specific exchange."

• "We are currently actively considering a buyback plan, and we are also contemplating the destruction of some future supply tokens."

• "I can state clearly that we have never engaged in any form of price manipulation or token pumping with our market-making partners; that is simply not how we operate, and we don't even have the capital to do such things. Mantra has not raised that much funding in the past 12 to 16 months. This is not something we have ever participated in, nor would we do it."

• "We are a regulated entity, and we have been handling requests and maintaining transparency about what we need to do."

• "I have experienced many ups and downs, and this time is no exception. I do need to take responsibility for this. This incident is unprecedented, and I believe there was indeed malicious behavior; we are working hard to uncover the truth."

• "I think the best thing we can do right now is to release as much on-chain information as possible to show the current state of the token and what exactly happened."

JP Mullin's Reaction to the OM Token Plunge

Zack Guzman:

A lot has been happening in the crypto industry recently, and this weekend everyone was focused on a token's plunge, which belongs to the RWA sector. We saw the OM token drop over 80% in a single day, with a market cap loss of about $5 billion. There are many questions about this event, and we hope to find answers today and understand the truth of the matter. Thank you to JP Mullin, co-founder of Mantra, for joining us on Coinage. I want to start by asking, you mentioned some things on Twitter yesterday; what did you discover? What happened in the past 24 hours?

JP Mullin:

Clearly, it has been a long and difficult day for me, the team, and the community, especially for the community.

Last week, I attended Blockchain Week in Paris. On Saturday, Paris time, I took a flight to Seoul, South Korea, and now I am in my hotel room. We have an artist summit today, and I will talk about that event.

I went to bed around midnight local time, and at 5 AM, the hotel called me because the team had contacted the hotel, as they couldn't reach me on my phone. It was quite chaotic, asking what was happening, why the token was crashing, and so on. We checked for any on-chain vulnerabilities or if the token had been stolen. After communicating with some key partners, investors, and exchanges, we found that the OM token was being used as collateral for leveraged positions on centralized exchanges, leading to large-scale liquidations.

These positions were rapidly liquidated in a low liquidity environment, especially on Sunday night in Asia time. I want to emphasize that I was asleep at that time. These positions were quickly liquidated, causing a sharp price drop and triggering a chain reaction of other liquidations and sell-offs, resulting in a significant price decline. When I woke up, I saw all of this. We then released a message stating that we were investigating the matter and would continue to provide communication and transparency as much as possible. We are in contact with all investors, partners, exchanges, and community members, ready to communicate what happened, how we will respond, and answer any potential questions.

Was the liquidation the cause of the token crash?

Zack Guzman:

Mantra's project is a Layer 1 protocol related to RWA, and your headquarters is in Dubai, which is also your main operational location. Which partners are you working with to advance this project? The goal of the project is to tokenize RWA, and before your Layer 1 protocol was launched last year, the OM token had existed for several years as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. Can we go back to the project's origins and understand its development history?

JP Mullin:

I can first introduce the founding process of Mantra and how the project got started to help you understand the relationship between the ERC token and the mainnet token.

Mantra was founded in early 2020 during the COVID pandemic. On August 18, 2020, we launched the ERC version of OM. The project has been around for nearly five years now. In March 2021, we launched on Binance, initially as a DeFi protocol and developed some early products. We experienced the initial boom of DeFi, followed by a market downturn. Mantra went through significant market retracement, dropping to about 1.7 cents (approximately 0.12 RMB) during the bear market in 2023. At the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, I met with some key partners, including the Shorooq Fund from the UAE and the crypto division of Nemora, Laser Digital. They helped us raise some institutional capital to push for the establishment of a compliant DeFi protocol. We are working with the regulatory body in Dubai, Vara, to obtain licensing. Earlier this year, we received the first-ever DeFi license in history. Additionally, we launched a Layer 1 blockchain aimed at tokenization, with compliance, permissioning, and identity layers.

During this time, we began integrating the token model. Initially, we planned to run the ERC version of the Mantra token separately and a chain called Omega, which would have AUM tokens. After a community vote, the community wanted to support OM, so we combined the two and began developing an institutional-grade RWA business in the UAE. We obtained Vara's license in Dubai and launched the blockchain at the end of last year. Along with the launch of the chain, we initiated the bridging process for the tokens. Now, we essentially have the ERC token, and at the time of the chain launch, about 95% or 96% of the tokens were in circulation, and now it's about 98%. This is a fixed supply ERC token with a total of 8,888,888. All of this can be verified on Etherscan, where you can see the distribution of wallets, many of which are exchanges and other marked wallets. We also have supply on the mainnet, with most tokens locked in custody, working with qualified custodians like Anchorage, and executing lock-ups with these third parties.

All this information has been verified. We released a transparency report last week in response to requests for specific details. We will continue to provide transparency regarding wallets and other information as much as possible. Essentially, the ERC tokens have been bridged to other chains, and I believe they were bridged to Polygon through the Polygon POS. There is also a BSC version of the OM token on Binance, as well as a base OM, but they are all part of the existing ERC supply of 8,888,888.

Zack Guzman:

I think this is also where I found it interesting when looking at some of the mirroring aspects, where you mirrored some tokens to the new chain. If someone wants to redeem a token, it will be destroyed and converted. Whenever a project exists for a while, there are decisions and processes involved. But returning to now, considering that people have an understanding of these decisions and the context of these tokens existing across multiple chains.

Could you review how many tokens might have been used on exchanges as collateral for leverage, providing an opportunity to build a very large position, as you described yesterday? The exchange might say, "Hey, you are going to be liquidated." When this happens, there is a process. It sounds like this is basically what you described.

When large positions are liquidated, a significant amount of OM tokens flood the market, leading to a price drop. Do you know who held these positions and which exchange was involved? Did you receive any notification before the liquidation occurred?

JP Mullin:

Prior to this, we had been in communication with exchanges, asking when the token would be listed on the exchanges. Do you know who the holders of these wallets are? Are they team members or market makers? In this case, we did receive some inquiries from exchanges to understand what was happening. This is not something that occurred in the last 24 hours but has been the case over the past few months. We are not clear on the specifics of the last 24 hours, but we have reached out to several exchanges to inquire about the source of these tokens and their use as collateral on the exchanges. These tokens came from some new wallets that are not associated with any other wallets we know of. At least I have marked all the wallets I know of on Etherscan for tracking purposes. These are all new wallets. We know that certain exchanges may have played a role in this matter.

However, I don't want to comment too much on this right now, as we and our institutional investors and partners are exploring potential legal avenues to support our community and those affected investors. But clearly, in a low liquidity environment, there was a large-scale forced liquidation that occurred on Sunday night. We are maintaining communication with our institutional partners like Shorooq and Laser and trying to remain transparent.

Zack Guzman:

These partners have also stated that they were not involved in similar trades; both Shorooq and Laser have indicated that they were not the parties selling. You mentioned the low liquidity environment that occurred over the weekend and during off-peak hours, assuming you also work with market makers. Can you disclose who the market makers you work with are? What has your discussion with the market makers been like in this situation?

JP Mullin:

We have several market makers who are also our investors. We work with multiple large trading firms that are also our investors. They actively support the market and hold positions in OM, and they also have loan agreements with OM. As far as I understand, the positions they held could not withstand such a large-scale forced sell-off, which may have exceeded hundreds of millions of dollars. But I don't have specific numbers; this is something we hope to understand further. Once we have more information, we will release it as soon as possible.

Zack Guzman:

Is the position you mentioned in the range of about $100 million?

JP Mullin:

We believe it is in that range. This is a very large position. It used to be a multi-billion dollar token, and there were large investors holding positions and using these tokens to support other collateral positions to back their leveraged positions. All of this happened in a very short time. I want to emphasize again that I went to bed at midnight, and when I woke up at 5 AM, this had already been going on for an hour or two. So everything happened very quickly. This is why we say this is a very unprecedented and rapid event. Clearly, we are doing our best to gather and share the information we can provide.

Explanation of Token Design and Cross-Chain Technology

Zack Guzman:

I agree with you that this is, in some ways, unprecedented, especially considering it happened over the weekend. If it wasn't your main investors, then who could establish a $100 million position here that led to such a liquidation event? This could be an off-chain issue. Let's talk about this because I think this might be something many people in the cryptocurrency space don't necessarily understand.

As a founder, making these decisions must not be easy, right? You have to weigh various pros and cons, such as how to list the token on centralized exchanges, how to work with market makers, and ensure they won't betray us at critical moments. If possible, please talk about whether you decided to engage in over-the-counter (OTC) trading during the launch process in 2024, and how those trades were conducted? Because there were already many tokens circulating in the market before your launch. What were those trades like? Are they related to what we discussed earlier?

JP Mullin:

We conducted two rounds of financing for the mainnet tokens as part of our commitment to transparency. These tokens are currently still held in custody by Anchorage, with a lock-up period that started last October, consisting of 12+24 months, and another batch will unlock in a few months, expected to have a 12-month unlock period. Additionally, we have some investors who purchased tokens through OTC trading, and these investors are still our long-term supporters, such as Shorooq and Laser, who have not sold their tokens. These tokens were supposed to unlock over approximately 18 months. We started gradually unlocking them from March last year, and now these tokens have been in circulation for a long time, but no one has sold. We have a very committed group of long-term investors, and I am very grateful for their support, and they will continue to support us to deny any false acquisition claims. Sorry, it has been a long day today, and I am having some difficulty with my wording.

Zack Guzman:

Regarding the accusations you mentioned, I want to clarify very specifically because I don't think anyone is accusing anything. As a journalist, I need to be very precise when discussing this. I don't think many of the things happening in this space are "harvesting retail investors," such as the Terra incident; I believe many things are not harvesting retail investors, and we are not talking about some small tokens.

We are talking about JP Mullin and his team, who are building a Layer 1 blockchain related to RWA and collaborating with some large companies, such as those in the tobacco industry in Dubai. I think it's important to talk about where you think the problem lies. If you are trying to build a legitimate and real project, where do you think the problem lies? The accusations seem to point to an exchange. It sounds like you are blaming the $100 million liquidation event regarding your trading volume, which is actually equivalent to your daily trading volume on many days.

JP Mullin:

I am not blaming a single person; in fact, I believe this is a collective action involving multiple individuals. We believe this incident revolves around a specific exchange, but we are working hard to gather more information and maintain communication with all exchange partners.

Clearly, this is an unprecedented event and very unfortunate for our community. We will do our best to address this issue. I have participated in several AMAs (Ask Me Anything) and discussions. I want to talk about how we will respond to this event. The current focus is on addressing public relations issues as quickly as possible, communicating with media like yours, and reaching out to the community, for which we are very grateful. This morning, we held a summit based on RTA (Real-Time Asset) in Korea, and I was there in person because I wanted everyone to know that we are not avoiding or hiding. This is not a case of harvesting retail investors. We have been doing this for five years, and we will continue, with more to come in the future.

But the next step we need to take is how to truly repair our community and holders. We are currently actively considering a buyback plan, and we are also contemplating the destruction of some future supply tokens. We hope to combine these two efforts and plan to release relevant information in the near future.

In addition, we also want to provide as much detailed information as possible to ensure transparency, verify on-chain data, and provide the community with as much evidence as possible to support what we are saying. They can verify for themselves and see all our information.

Preliminary Ideas for Buyback and Destruction Plans

Zack Guzman:

There have indeed been many people buying tokens after the crash, and your number of holders has significantly increased as a result. But I am curious, regarding the buyback plan, what is your current financial situation? What do people need to know?

JP Mullin:

First, I want to clarify that our business is in good shape and financially healthy. We have enough capital to continue operations. In fact, we have received a lot of interest from existing and new investors who are willing to provide funding to support our buyback plan or engage in long-term OTC trading. We are actively evaluating these options and plan to develop a comprehensive plan as soon as possible. Currently, our business will continue to operate normally, and we will share updates on the plan in a timely manner. Therefore, the financial situation is good, and we will continue to move forward.

Zack Guzman:

You mentioned long-term OTC trading, which I think is important because OTC trading can affect prices in token trading. Investors, such as Laser Digital and Shorooq, have stated that they have not sold tokens. As founders, did you conduct due diligence in this regard? Has Mantra engaged in OTC trading before?

JP Mullin:

We have indeed engaged in OTC trading with multiple institutional partners and high-net-worth individuals, family offices. These trades are all of a long-term nature, and currently, no tokens are unlocking. We want to ensure that investors do not hedge and try to become long-term holders to avoid putting unnecessary selling pressure on the market. We work with some brokers who will notify us of any selling intentions, and we can communicate with investors to conduct OTC trades in an orderly manner to ensure market health.

Zack Guzman:

Isn't this regulatory challenge quite significant? The reputation of OM has been affected, and there are already many tokens circulating in the market. After the tokens transitioned from ERC20 to mainnet tokens, did this situation become more difficult to handle?

JP Mullin:

Actually, it is not difficult. We have over 100 million OM tokens bridged from Ethereum to the mainnet. This means there are a large number of circulating tokens in the market. We will not sell the circulating tokens but will sell those that are held long-term or in reserve. This can explain why someone could establish a $100 million position, as these tokens might be good collateral. But if liquidity is insufficient and trading volume is low, exchanges may require liquidation.

Why are these tokens seemingly worthless on paper? Mainly due to liquidity issues. Circulating tokens can be traded on exchanges, not used as collateral. We have had conversations with exchanges, but the liquidation issue should be between them and the investors. Typically, this situation would be communicated over a period of time. But what we saw was a very aggressive liquidation that happened very quickly, which is why we are concerned and working on seeking legal remedies. We are collaborating with investors to consider all possible options.

Zack Guzman:

Regarding the token timeline, do you have any updates? There have been votes and proposals to implement this. You have a token distribution plan and are wary of spoofing attacks, where someone might spoof wallets to claim more tokens. How much does this relate to timing? As a founder, how do you deal with this situation? Could this be a warning sign that tokens are falling into the hands of those who should not receive them?

JP Mullin:

I think this is just an unfortunate coincidence. We conducted the first 10% airdrop a few weeks ago, which was delayed. To briefly explain the tokenomics, we announced the initial airdrop in February 2024, with a total of 50 million tokens, valued from $5 million to $10 million, later peaking at $400 million to $500 million.

These are zero-cost basis OM tokens, and existing token holders are somewhat concerned about this. Therefore, we adjusted the unlocking method and conducted the first airdrop. We also reduced spoofing behavior but discovered malicious activities, with multiple accounts and wallets attempting to exploit the system, which is clearly not what we want. We want to protect and support the genuine holders who purchased tokens. Therefore, we made a detection decision in March and conducted the airdrop a week and a half ago.

Zack Guzman:

Why do you want to protect those who spent money supporting your project to prevent those who did not pay the same price from obtaining tokens?

JP Mullin:

I believe that those who support the project have spent their hard-earned money, and I have a responsibility to help them. When someone tries to exploit the system to improperly obtain tokens and profit from it, as a founder and project supporter, we cannot allow such behavior. This does not mean we do not support community activities. After the airdrop, there are still over 200,000 wallets on the mainnet participating, all of which are verified real users who have not been affected by spoofing attacks and continue to hold. Therefore, this is a group of users that need protection. This is not only an issue for mainnet holders but also for OM holders on Ethereum, which is about a hundred thousand users, not even including wallets on exchanges, so the number is quite large. This is very important to us, and I take it very seriously; this is a very unfortunate event.

Transparency, Investor and Market Maker Relationships

Zack Guzman:

As a founder, you need to take your responsibilities seriously and ensure that the token lock-up periods are strictly enforced. Some project founders do not do enough in this regard. Additionally, the current market capitalization has exceeded $6 billion, and the slow rise in token prices may be due to market makers artificially inflating prices when market liquidity is insufficient. Seeing this situation, do you feel concerned? Because without enough trading volume and market activity to support the price, it could lead to investors entering the market at inflated prices. How much does this market dynamic impact your responsibilities?

JP Mullin:

I can share some adjustments we made in our tokenomics. When we adjusted the unlocking arrangements for this airdrop, we also restructured the token distribution for the team. The team's tokens are still held in custody by Anchorage, and this information has been disclosed in our transparency report. As part of the airdrop, we extended the lock-up period for the team and advisors' tokens to the maximum duration, which is a 30-month lock-up period, followed by a 30-month unlock period.

For the ERC tokens I personally hold, I have reinvested all of them and committed to continue investing for the next six years, in addition to the four and a half years I have already spent building Mantra.

Our goal is long-term stability. I have experienced many ups and downs, and this time is no exception. I do need to take responsibility for this. This event is unprecedented, and I believe there is indeed malicious behavior, and we are working hard to uncover the truth. But I am here, actively participating in the summit in Korea, and maintaining communication and transparency because I am passionate about this project. The community means a lot to me. We will continue to work hard to support them. I must take full responsibility, good or bad. It is a difficult time for us now, but we will keep moving forward and continue to grow based on a solid foundation with strong partners.

Zack Guzman:

I think I am starting to understand the malicious behavior you mentioned; this is a new perspective for me because something may indeed have happened. It sounds like you are saying that someone held a large amount of tokens that were liquidated.

JP Mullin:

I find the timing of this matter suspicious, and the handling of it is questionable; such things do not lead to a large-scale crash overnight, so we want to investigate what exactly happened.

Typically, such liquidations do not happen instantaneously. If you have ever been forcibly liquidated or had a loan liquidated, you would know. If you maintain communication with the exchange or lender, provide collateral, or seek solutions, no one would suddenly liquidate you completely, especially not for a position worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This is a large position that clearly needs to be handled with care. We believe this incident was not handled properly. That is why we want to clarify what exactly happened, as many people have been harmed as a result.

Zack Guzman:

I agree, but I think this is also a key point about the relationship between market makers. Again, from an outside perspective, I can only speculate, and you are likely the one who knows more information. Therefore, I want to understand why this happened. Some say it is easy to understand. Let’s illustrate this with your liquidation example. If the tokens are not actually trading based on supply and demand dynamics but are being inflated in price by different market participants, then the exchange might say, “Look, this situation and the price movements we see are normal; if there are no buyers, the price will collapse.”

Assuming you, as a founder, might know about these conversations, or at least should know about the flow of these tokens, trading volumes, or the situation with which exchanges.

JP Mullin:

To some extent, yes. We have indeed received inquiries from exchanges asking, “What are these tokens doing, where are they coming from, and why are they being used as collateral on the exchange?” They would send me a new wallet address from another exchange. I cannot make decisions or obtain any information about the exact ownership of these tokens.

We work with several different market makers, all of whom are our investors. I am very willing to share their names. We collaborate with Laser, Amber, and Manifold Trading, all of whom are our investors and partners. I can state clearly that we have never engaged in any form of price manipulation or token inflation with our market-making partners; that is simply not how we operate, and we do not even have the capital to do such things. Mantra has not raised that much funding in the past 12 to 16 months. This is not something we have ever been involved in, nor is it something we would do.

I believe the value of the tokens should be determined by the market. I hope we can find a fair market value for what we are building. We have executed very strongly over the past 12 to 15 months. We have had many significant announcements and received support from institutional funds and partners, including major real estate developers and network partners like Google. So it is not that we have not passed the “sniff test” of due diligence. We are a regulated entity, and we have been handling requests and maintaining transparency about what we need to do. By the way, we are also in contact with regulatory partners.

Zack Guzman:

I want to ask, as a project approved by Vara, have you discussed this incident with them?

JP Mullin:

They were one of the first contacts we reached out to. We have maintained communication. I believe everyone wants to understand the truth, and we are committed to providing all facts and information as transparently as possible.

In addition to the recovery plan, the next step is to provide a detailed post-mortem analysis, publicly sharing every fact and piece of information we can, including public wallet information. We hope to restore the community's trust and clearly demonstrate what we have experienced on the blockchain. Shorooq has already made their wallet information public, Laser has also released wallet information, and we have made our wallet information public as well. We will continue to release as much information as possible; we will not evade responsibility, and we will always be here.

Zack Guzman:

I want to talk again about the issue of transparency; Shorooq has stated that these tokens were not sold by them. So how do we handle the issue of transparency moving forward? What is the future of Mantra? What will happen to the OM token next? These questions have raised many doubts.

Before the incident, I noticed that someone was asking about transparency on Twitter while I was preparing, and you mentioned supply issues in your response. We mainly discussed the spoofing issue related to the airdrop, and you responded, “I neither inflate nor deflate this token. From the beginning, we have maintained transparency about the tokenomics and recently released another report for the community.” I want to understand what report you are referring to. I am not sure if you are referring to the spoofing issue, but the main question is whether the supply dynamics are transparent. I also saw that Binance recently issued a warning on the OM token listing due to concerns about the increase in token supply.

JP Mullin:

Throughout the development of Mantra, we have been updating the issuance and supply situation of the OM token. These verification efforts were completed last year when we merged the ERC tokens with the new chain tokens, through governance voting and approval from the ERC20 Mantra DAO community. We have continued to release updates over the past few months. While I do not have those links right now, I would be happy to share them.

You can see the progress of this process. We work closely with Binance and other exchanges. Whenever there is a change in tokenomics, we communicate with them immediately. Any changes in tokenomics are directly shared with Binance and other exchanges through publicly verified governance proposals or media articles we publish.

I know they are aware of these changes, which is why many exchanges intend to support the mainnet, and Binance is one of them. We have been in contact with them regarding this support, and they are also aware of the changes in token supply. This is not new; it happened back in October last year.

What is the future direction of Mantra?

Zack Guzman:

However, I find it particularly interesting regarding the 1:1 mirrored destruction situation between your tokens and the existing tokens. Has there been any discussion about whether some tokens should be converted if the circulating supply is too large?

I am looking at the proposal, and many people mentioned that this proposal might be one of them. I remember you mentioned there were 91 votes. Many people used to say we were already dead at that time. Yes, as a leader, tell me what the decision-making process was like and whether it will be revisited to change it?

JP Mullin:

No, I will not change it. I believe if that proposal had passed, we would not even have a Mantra chain Layer 1. Initially, we planned to have Mantra ERC tokens and a completely independent L1 chain, which would conduct some sort of airdrop to reward OM, and that token was called Omega AUM. At that time, we discussed this with investors and key team members, which was at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, when no one really understood Mantra. Our price had dropped by 95% at that time. Everyone thought we were done for. Then we experienced a miraculous rebound, which was also due to re-pricing a DAO token that was considered “dead” into a new L1 for real-world assets (RWAs).

Clearly, this is a combination of a series of different narratives and the things we have been working hard on. Regarding how the mirrored pool operates, when we create new supply for the chain, all of this is public, and everyone supporting the project is fully aware of it.

The mirrored pool is essentially a bridge between the ERC tokens and the mainnet tokens. We effectively have a mirror of the existing ERC supply, which is verifiable on-chain. When people send their ERC tokens, they are sent to a burn address. So far, about 100 million tokens have been burned.

The mirrored tokens are one-to-one fungible tokens. For example, on Bybit, you can see they have listings for both ERC and Mantra chain. You can deposit ERC OM or deposit or withdraw Mantra OM, and vice versa.

Our threshold is 30,000 tokens; if you send through the bridge, it will fill immediately within minutes, verifying that it has been sent to the burn address, and then outputting new tokens. If it exceeds 30,000 tokens, it needs to be processed manually, requiring multi-signature wallet approval and sending, which can take up to 24 hours to ensure this is a significant opportunity point.

When we launched, I forgot the exact price of OM at that time, but there were still hundreds of millions of OM in this bridging wallet. We want to ensure this does not become a vector for attack and ensure that people can correctly bridge their tokens to the mainnet tokens, which is also where all new activities begin.

Zack Guzman:

Considering the 90% drop, thinking about those who may have entered at higher prices, they have lost their hard-earned money. Do you think you and the team have done enough in terms of transparency to inform people about what might happen here?

JP Mullin:

That is a good question; I feel we have been trying to maintain transparency. The issue here is that I want to continue to be as transparent as possible, ensuring everyone can see that we have not actually sold any tokens.

Zack Guzman:

I don't think people are angry about the sale of the tokens. Strangely, the SEC recently commented on transparency issues, especially when dealing with these matters. They basically asked to "disclose your market makers, disclose the agreements you have reached, disclose who might hold the tokens, and the changes in supply."

So what I want to ask is, now the trading price of the OM token has dropped from nearly $7 to $0.70, just one-tenth of its original value. Are you willing to talk transparently about these agreements? Regarding others, their cost basis with these large market makers or investors, these are all significant supply pressures. If you are communicating with new people, what kind of transparency do you hope to provide now?

JP Mullin:

I think the best thing we can do right now is to release as much on-chain information as possible to show the current state of the tokens and what exactly has happened.

There are relatively few off-chain factors, and we have been publicly releasing the unlocking plans since our inception, so we are willing to provide as much information about these transactions as possible. We are indeed committed to this. I will support this, and we will release information, but we are not able to do so at the moment. I believe investors will want to know what has happened. This is a good question; you mentioned both on-chain and off-chain aspects, and we are fully committed to providing as much information as possible, and I make that promise.

Zack Guzman:

Regarding the future direction, this is a big question that I think many people are paying attention to. Perhaps you can talk about the future direction and how you plan to move forward. As for the real-world assets on this chain, you mentioned that you haven't raised much funding. When you talk about the buyback plan, it seems almost impossible to return to previous levels. So, JP, what plans do you have to achieve this goal? What assets do you have available now?

JP Mullin:

Of course. We have been through similar situations before. When we first launched, the price dropped over 95%. People thought we were done, but we managed to rebound. We are committed to doing it again.

From a founder's perspective, I am willing to do anything to ensure the community is treated well. I am willing to do everything I can. This is more important to me than anything else. What we need to do now is document what has happened and support our community during this difficult time.

We have long-term, large institutional partners. Our business is well-funded. We will continue to move forward and execute our plans. We are seeing a significant increase in institutional interest, which is reassuring.

We are committed to doing what we can from a buyback perspective. I will do my best to reinvest the tokens I hold as a founder. To me, this is not a financial transaction; frankly, it never has been. Therefore, I want to ensure we can revitalize the business and keep moving forward. We will work with our partners like Subaru and Laser to create an appropriate buyback plan and establish a burn mechanism to show people what is happening and to burn unnecessary supply. I have already spoken with our investors, and they have committed to supporting this.

Zack Guzman:

Regarding these issues, I want to confirm if there is a possibility for investors or institutions to intervene if they are interested in liquidation at that time? You said these conversations did not happen.

JP Mullin:

Everything happened very quickly; it occurred on a Sunday night, and we did not have much time to react. I was actually sleeping at the time. We are obviously working with partners who hold tokens, and they will continue to support the project, and some new investors have also shown interest and expressed willingness to continue supporting the project. So that is reassuring; everyone knows we have been working hard to build something for a long time, and this is not our first experience. We will continue to work hard.

Zack Guzman:

Speaking of the personal impact this has on you, you mentioned this point. You have been working on this project for a while. I have seen your interviews over the years, from discussing OM to the mainnet launch last year. For you personally, going through all this, I have interviewed many project founders, including Do Kwon after the Terra collapse and SBF after the FTX collapse. I am curious, JP, is there a sense of relief to some extent because, clearly, from what I hear today, you do not feel relieved. But in the case of rising token prices, knowing what might happen, is there a sense of relief thinking, "Well, the token price is here"? As you said, you have experienced crashes before. Is there any feeling that perhaps this is where we should be?

JP Mullin:

I don't think so. No matter what the market value is, I do not feel relieved because of it. An unprecedented event has occurred, and many people have lost money and been harmed, and I feel very uneasy about that. It has been a very difficult day, and I feel sad for our community, for those who have lost money, for our team, and for some foreign investors. This situation is really bad, and I feel very heartbroken. Therefore, I do not feel relieved because of market changes. I am committed to doing everything I can, spending every moment to fix this, and doing the right thing. I will stick to my commitments, and I believe those who have supported us over the past five years can attest to that. I will do my best to support this project and take responsibility for what has happened rather than evade it.

Zack Guzman:

You mentioned that you feel bad; I want to clarify what specifically makes you feel uneasy. The price drop is obviously a factor, but it sounds like you believe it is not your fault. So besides the price, what specific reasons make you feel bad? Because you mentioned you did not sell, and your investors did not sell, so I am curious what the reason for your unease is?

JP Mullin:

What makes me feel bad is that some people have lost money. They trusted this project and the tokens, and as a result, overnight, their token value dropped by 80% or 90%. That is really bad, and I feel sad for those who supported us.

Zack Guzman:

As a founder, do you feel responsible for this? If possible, I would like to know what specifically makes you feel uneasy?

JP Mullin:

They trusted me and believed in this project, but they lost money because of it. I feel a fiduciary responsibility to the token holders and supporters. I cannot shake this feeling, and I truly feel sad about it. Honestly, I don't know what else to say.

I am hurt; I feel our community is hurt. Our token holders and the entire foundation have been affected. I feel a sense of responsibility; even though I did not act with negligence or malice, I still feel responsible.

Zack Guzman:

I am curious, when your investors hear you say they have been hurt, do they really feel hurt, even though the trading price of the token is now 0.7?

JP Mullin:

I don't think they feel truly hurt. That is also why, as I said, investors holding liquid tokens still have not sold any liquid tokens.

Zack Guzman:

Perhaps it is not those investors who have been hurt, but others, like those you mentioned who joined later, who are related to the changes in the tokens. Your work in the RWA space is clearly a hot topic. Before we wrap up, I want to give you a final opportunity to speak; please tell those who may hold this token what you want to say.

JP Mullin:

First, thank you for having me here to share our situation. I want to emphasize again that we will formulate a plan to ensure a fully transparent account of what has happened. Please follow my and our company's Twitter accounts; all information will be posted there. We will launch a buyback and burn plan in the coming days to support investors as much as possible. We will maintain ongoing communication with the community. I assure the community that we will do our best to rectify this situation.

Thank you to those who have supported us and reached out; it means a lot to us. For those who are currently skeptical of us, we will continue to work hard and come back stronger than ever.

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