The recent collapse of the Mantra (OM) token has drawn comparisons to the notorious Terra ecosystem crash in May 2022, with some observers labeling Mantra as the “next Terra.” However, industry experts argue that the two events are fundamentally different, sharing no more than visual similarities in their price charts.
Ben Yorke, vice president of the decentralized finance (DeFi) project Woo, emphasized the differences: “While it’s tempting to draw parallels between OM’s recent crash and the Terra Luna collapse, they’re fundamentally very different events.” Similarly, Alexis Sirkia, chairman of the DeFi infrastructure project Yellow Network, concurred, stating that the only similarity is the visual of the price drop.
Visual Similarity – Different Numbers
On April 13, Mantra’s OM token plummeted by 92%, falling from over $6 to around $0.52 in just a matter of hours. CoinGecko reported that OM lost $5.4 billion in market capitalization within this brief period. In contrast, TerraClassicUSD (formerly UST) demonstrated a more gradual decline; it took a full five days for UST to lose a similar percentage, resulting in a staggering loss of $17.2 billion.
Comparison of Mantra’s OM crash in April 2025 versus UST’s crash in May 2022 (seven-day chart). Source: CoinGecko
The LUNA crash began before the UST depegged on May 9, 2022, demonstrating a more systemic collapse compared to the sudden fall of OM.
Systemic vs. Isolated Events
Yorke and Sirkia agree that the Terra collapse was systemic, primarily caused by the failure of its algorithmic stablecoin. In contrast, the crash of Mantra seems more related to mismanagement rather than a fundamental flaw in its system. “OM appears to be more of a case of mismanagement or negligence,” explained Yorke, noting that the crash followed the movement of a large number of insider-held tokens to exchanges, triggering cascading liquidations.
Source: ZachXBT
Sirkia argued that the issue lay in market structure rather than a failure of protocol: “Mantra is not broken. There was no peg to fail. This is a market structure issue, not a protocol failure.” He further stated that unlike Terra, Mantra underwent a market-driven correction where the team stayed transparent throughout the ordeal. OM has even shown signs of recovery, bouncing over 200% after the drop, a feat that never occurred with Luna.
As the crisis settled, the latest updates indicated that OM had slightly recovered to $0.80 after experiencing a drastic sell-off from above $6 to $0.50 on April 13. Mantra CEO John Mullin has announced expectations for a post-mortem report detailing the events leading to the OM crash in the next 24 hours.
This comparison serves not only as a point of discussion but also as a critical reminder of the complexities involved in cryptocurrency markets. It underscores the importance of understanding the unique circumstances surrounding each collapse to avoid oversimplified narratives.
