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What happened today?

Another “quiet” weekend for crypto in the books as former RWA leader Mantra DAO (OM) lost $6B in market cap in minutes on Sunday falling from over $6 to just $0.25 at the lowest. To my recollection we haven’t seen a wipe like this since the collapse of Luna, so what exactly happened? Well if you still trusted the team enough to take the founder’s word for it, this was just a case of over-levered positions getting liquidated (?) and had nothing to do with the team or its investors selling their supply. This is obviously a ridiculous claim and I’m surprised it was approved for publication, but I guess what are you supposed to say after evaporating billions in capital?

Investigations are still very much ongoing as this only happened 24 hours ago, however at this point we know a significant amount of supply (around $240M) was sent to exchanges in the days leading up to the crash. CT’s leading onchain detective ZachXBT has chimed in to allege that the founder of Reef Finance, Denko Mancheski, is potentially involved here; if you recognize that name, it’s probably because you remember Binance delisting their token a few years ago due to manipulative practices. I’m not going to sit here and make accusations, but what I will say is that price action was certainly not due to just “reckless liquidations.” Ironically, this all happened about 24 hours after the Mantra founder tweeted that he was terrified to have no WiFi on the long flight he was about to step onto “because it’s hard to work with no internet connection.”

Trading Talk

Despite the broader market condition not changing much in the last week, it does feel like there’s been a palpable sentiment shift. In some ways, a 100%+ tariff on our largest trade partner is about as bad as it can get - for this reason while the whole situation is very much still uncertain, we got some kind of a resolution. In other words, the reasoning here is if all of that only took Bitcoin to $75k, what could take it lower? These are dangerous questions to ask for sure, but also potentially very insightful. If you remember back to the collapse of FTX, that very week was the perfect bottom of the market. Everyone was scared of the second order effects and how much worse things would get when in reality the worst had already happened.

This is a very different setup of course, with the negative influences coming from outside of the market rather than within, however I think the same logic can be applied. If you can zoom out from all the negativity, crypto as an industry has made monumental progress in adoption on both a user and nation level. Bitcoin is a common topic in Government meetings, and stablecoins are quietly becoming a dominant player in the payments indsutry. There’s a lot of noise, just as there always has been, but it’s our job to put that aside and think critically.

Oh also, 20% of the supply of Trump’s memecoin unlocks on Friday totaling about $330M so uh… watch out for that!

Tweet of the Day

At the end of the day, we’re all the same.

Biggest Headlines

The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!

The Majors

• SEC delays crypto ETF staking and in-kind redemption decisions as agency mulls long-term crypto regulatory strategy

• Bitcoin hovers at $85k as Fed’s Waller suggests ‘bad news’ rate cuts if tariffs resume

Alt Coins and Stocks

• Mantra token crashes 90% in one hour, team blames ‘reckless liquidations’

Random

• Blackbird gobbles up $50M for its blockchain-based payment-loyalty app for restaurants

• US crypto exchange Kraken launches stock and ETF trading

Recent Beluga Content

The content on this site is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. While Beluga strives to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information, there may be discrepancies when comparing our data to that of financial institutions, service providers, or specific product websites. Always consult with a professional before making any financial decisions.

Will McKinnon is the Head of Content for Beluga and has spent every day for many years trading coins. For that reason there are too many to name, however his largest holdings by a significant margin are Ethereum and Bitcoin. NFA DYOR