YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) —Mantra CEO John Patrick Mullin announced plans to burn his personal OM crypto token allocation.
He shared the update on X after OM’s price jumped 30% in 24 hours. The altcoin had dropped from $6.30 to under $0.50, a 90% decline that wiped out over $5.5 billion in market value.
“I’m planning to burn all of my team tokens, and when we turn it around, the community and investors can decide if I have earned it back,” Mullin wrote.
Mullin said only his share is part of the OM token burn. He holds 772,000 OM tokens. He added that some tokens might go to a community-controlled dispersal system. Mullin also confirmed that all team tokens remain locked under a vesting schedule until April 2027, with full vesting ending by October 2029.
Crypto Experts Oppose OM Token Burn Plan
Meanwhile, Ran Neuner, founder of Crypto Banter, disagreed with Mullin’s proposal. He said burning team incentives could lower motivation for development.
“This would be a mistake. We want teams that are highly incentivized. Burning the incentive may seem like a good gesture but it will hurt the team motivation long term,” Neuner stated.
In response, Mullin said the OM token burn would apply only to his allocation. He added that the team will continue development regardless of the decision.
Mullin said Mantra will release a post-mortem report. It will explain the OM crash and outline next steps, including a potential OM buyback program and a broader OM token burn plan. He also denied accusations of a pump-and-dump scheme, saying the team had not sold any OM crypto tokens.
Mantra OTC Deals Remain Locked
The situation escalated after online scam investigator Coffeezilla posted a summary of his YouTube interview with Mantra CEO John Patrick Mullin. Coffeezilla claimed the Mantra team sold “$25–$45 million worth of tokens in over-the-counter deals, at a 30–50% discount,” and later used “$5–$10 million to buy back OM,” calling the move a form of price manipulation.
Mullin denied the accusation during the interview. He confirmed that the Mantra Chain Association arranged OTC deals worth $25–$30 million to fund operations, but clarified:
“None of the OTC sales that we’ve had have actually been executed yet. So the tokens are all still locked.” He also added: “We don’t have leverage position on exchanges. We don’t do that.”