Crypto traders were reminded of Terra’s LUNA early Monday as trendy real-world asset upstart Mantra’s OM token dropped 90% within hours on no sudden catalyst — with conspiracy theories and allegations running abound among crypto circles.

OM plunged from over $6 to just over 40 cents late Sunday to early Monday in typically low liquidity hours for the crypto market — where outsized volumes can trigger massive price movements in either direction.

“We want to assure you that MANTRA is fundamentally strong,” the team said 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 lets users tokenize real-world assets (RWAs) like real estate and commodities, enabling compliant digital investments in tangible assets. Its OM token facilitates transactions and governance.

In January 2025, Mantra partnered with DAMAC Group, a UAE-based conglomerate, to tokenize $1 billion in assets, including real estate, hospitality, and data centers.

OM was among the biggest market gainers in 2024, rising more than 400% on relatively low public conversation on crypto-related social media — which intrigued traders and investors alike on the strength of the move.

Meanwhile, co-founder John Patrick Mullin alleged the movement was likely due to exchanges closing OM positions, which impacted all market exposure.

“We have determined that the OM market movements were triggered by reckless forced closures initiated by centralized exchanges on OM account holders,” Mullin said in an X post. “The timing and depth of the crash suggest that a very sudden closure of account positions was initiated without sufficient warning or notice.”

He further alleged “intentional market positioning taken by centralized exchanges.”

OM-tracked futures recorded over $50 million in liquidations on the long side, a record figure for the tokens. Open interest slumped from $345 million to just over $130 million, indicating a quick exit for unsettled futures bets.

Some prominent crypto voices aren’t buying that narrative, however, with scores of dismissive replies under Mullin’s posts.

OKX founder Star Xu added in a response to a separate post that flagged over $220 million in token deposits to exchanges before the price crash.

«It’s a big scandal to the whole crypto industry. All of the onchain unlock and deposit data is public, all major exchanges’ collateral and liquidation data can be investigated. OKX will make all of the reports ready,» Xu said.

Bitcoin (BTC) is flat as East Asian markets open for the week, trading above $84K, as the White House presents mixed messages on semiconductor and technology component tariffs.

Over the weekend, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the White House’s decision to exempt items like smartphones, computers, and the semiconductors that power them from tariffs was a temporary measure.

President Trump confirmed it later in a press briefing, stating that the tariff rate would be announced next week, but there would be some «flexibility» on the matter.

«The market saw a material rebound as popular consumer electronics categories were exempted from the 125% tariffs on China,» BTSE COO Jeff Mei told CoinDesk in a Telegram message. «Even after Trump mentioned that they would simply be moving to another bucket of tariffs rather than exempted altogether, markets held their gain amidst rumors that business leaders were able to convince the Trump administration to peel back some of their highest tariffs.»

«From our side, we believe there will be challenges to shift global supply chains away from China overnight and that low-end, low-margin manufacturing is most likely going to shift to other Asian countries after they broker trade deals. That being said, we do think that this rally looks temporary and that markets will continue to be volatile in the short term,» Mei added.

Meanwhile, China has announced its own tariffs on semiconductors, hitting U.S.-origin chips with a 34% tariff. However, China counts origin as where the chip was fabricated, not designed.

As the majority of U.S. chip companies, like AMD and Nvidia, don’t operate their own fabs and instead rely on Taiwan’s – which China counts as its own territory – TSMC, they would be effectively exempt from these tariffs.

Analysts in China acknowledge short-term disruptions from the semiconductor tariffs but broadly view them as an opportunity to accelerate domestic innovation, localization, and supply-chain restructuring, ultimately benefiting China’s semiconductor industry in the long run.

Local media in Taiwan report that TSMC is accelerating the construction of another fab in Arizona in order to be able to provide more U.S. fabricated chips as a cloud of uncertainty hangs above the sector.

Within China, equity traders seem to be waiting on the final tariff news in order to make their next move.

Shanghai’s SSE composite index is up 0.8%, while Shenzhen’s tech-heavy SZSE is up 0.9%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is up 2.4%.

Elsewhere in crypto, Hong Kong’s Bosera HashKey Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) has been approved to offer staking services. This comes after the city’s market regulator, the Securities and Futures Commission, issued guidance on offering staking services in Hong Kong.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted on X that the market hasn’t taken to ether ETFs very kindly. The best-performing ETFs on the market, he wrote, have been those that are short ether ETFs.

Ether has been down 47% over the last year, according to CoinDesk market data, while CoinDesk 20 is up 14%.

As traditional gold markets heat up, crypto investors are following suit—flocking to tokenized versions of the precious metal that offer both price exposure and digital flexibility.

Gold-backed cryptocurrencies like Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT) have risen 24.15% and 23.7% respectively year-to-date to new all-time highs above $3,300, roughly matching the performance of spot gold. Their prices have since receded slightly to $3,265 and $3,244, respectively.

While gold-backed cryptocurrencies surged so far this year, the wider cryptocurrency market has been in a downtrend. Bitcoin (BTC) has lost more than 11% of its value so far this year, while the wider crypto market has fallen by a little over 30%, based on the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index.

The tokens, which are backed by physical gold and track its price, experienced a surge in value as investors sought refuge from the uncertainty induced by the escalating U.S.-China trade war.

The move echoes a broader return to gold as a safe-haven asset. Inflows into gold ETFs hit 226.5 tonnes in the first quarter of 2025, the highest level since early 2022, according to data from the World Gold Council. Nearly 60% of that demand came from North America.

Similarly, gold-backed cryptocurrencies saw net token minting of over $42.7 million in the first quarter of the year, according to data from RWA.xyz, helping along with gold’s price appreciation raise their total market capitalization near $1.4 billion.