Mantra founder and CEO John Mullin has begun an $80 million burn of OM tokens to regain users’ trust following the token’s crash earlier in April. However, the question of the underlying reasons for the crash remains unanswered, blockchain investigators told Cointelegraph.

Unpacking Mantra’s OM crash would require a detailed forensic study rather than just basic blockchain analysis, said Natalie Newson, senior blockchain investigator at the blockchain security firm CertiK.

“A full forensic investigation, akin to what we saw post-FTX, would be needed to substantiate claims of calculated exploitation,” Newson told Cointelegraph, highlighting challenges of tracing over-the-counter (OTC) transactions.

Newson’s perspective on the OM crash came days after Mantra released its post-crash statement, asking centralized exchange partners to collaborate on further unpacking the incident.

Onchain activity versus opaque OTC deals

Addressing the OM token crash, Newson stressed the importance of distinguishing between public onchain activity and the “more opaque nature of OTC deals.”

Mantra CEO Mullin disclosed in an interview with Coffeezilla on April 15 that the Mantra team had “done a small amount of OTCs,” up to $30 million of OM tokens.

Mantra’s founder and CEO, John Mullin, in an interview with Coffeezilla. Source: YouTube

Unlike traceable transactions on centralized exchanges, OTC crypto transfers involve a method of buying and selling cryptocurrencies outside of exchanges, designed to enable deep liquidity and big trades while mitigating the volatility of prices.

“In this case, the accumulation of approximately 100 million OM by a whale appears to have been the result of secondary market transactions — not necessarily direct activity from Mantra insiders,” Newson said.

Analysis by Arkham or Nansen is not enough

As previously mentioned, Mullin denied allegations that the OM crash resulted from an insider token dump, claiming that blockchain analytics platform Arkham had “mislabelled” some wallets.

Newson said that data from Arkham and similar platforms like Nansen would be insufficient to confirm or deny insider involvement.

“To confirm coordinated insider behavior, it would likely require more than just basic wallet tracing on platforms like Arkham or Nansen,” Newson said, adding:

“Blockchain analytics tools can provide directional clues, but without access to offchain agreements and centralized exchange records, drawing definitive conclusions would be difficult.”

Newson is not alone in highlighting the complicated nature of tracing transactions in the OM token crash.

Related: Mantra OM token crash exposes ‘critical’ liquidity issues in crypto

“There are ways to get data from the node, but it does not seem to be easy to get a full history,” Whale Alert’s co-founder Frank Weert told Cointelegraph.

Mullin previously said that the team had been considering hiring a forensic auditor following the OM crash but had made no decision as of April 16.

Arkham did not respond to multiple Cointelegraph inquiries to comment on the Mantra incident.

Magazine: Altcoin season to hit in Q2? Mantra’s plan to win trust: Hodler’s Digest, April 13 – 19

Bitcoin mining firm Bitdeer secured $60 million in loans to ramp up its Bitcoin ASIC manufacturing efforts as global mining competition intensifies amid record-breaking network hashrates.

According to its annual report, Bitdeer entered a loan agreement in April with affiliate firm Matrixport, a crypto financial services company founded by Bitdeer’s chairman, Jihan Wu.

The facility offers up to $200 million, backed by Bitdeer’s Sealminer hardware, with a floating interest rate of 9% plus market benchmarks. As of April 21, Bitdeer had drawn $43 million from the credit line.

Source: Bitdeer’s Annual Report

The latest funding adds to a $17 million unsecured loan obtained in January, alongside previous capital raises totaling $572.5 million via convertible notes in 2024. Bitdeer also issued over six million shares, raising nearly $119 million in equity markets this year.

Related: Top Bitcoin miners produced nearly $800M of BTC in Q1 2025

Bitdeer acquires 101 MW Alberta power project

In February 2025, Bitdeer acquired a fully licensed 101 megawatt (MW) gas-fired power project near Fox Creek, Alberta, for $21.7 million in cash, per the annual filing.

The site, with potential to scale up to 1 gigawatt, includes all necessary permits for construction and a 99 MW grid connection. The power plant is set to be developed with an EPC partner and is expected to be operational by the fourth quarter of 2026.

In March, the company also purchased 40 MW worth of liquid-cooled mining containers from Saiheat.

More recently, it was reported that Bitdeer is expanding its self-mining operations and investing in United States-based production. The shift came in response to cooling demand for its mining hardware from other miners.

“Our plan going forward is to prioritize our own self-mining,” Jeff LaBerge, Bitdeer’s head of capital markets and strategic initiatives, reportedly said. 

Additionally, on Feb. 28, 2025, Bitdeer launched a $20 million share repurchase program, effective through February 2026. To date, it has repurchased 1,056,500 Class A shares valued at about $12 million under this program.

Related: American Bitcoin’s ambition is to dominate mining — Hut 8 CEO

Bitcoin hashrate surges while miner revenues shrink

Bitdeer’s expansion comes as Bitcoin’s network computing power hit a record 1 sextillion hashes per second in early April, according to BitInfoCharts.

Bitcoin hashrate. Source: BitInfoCharts

A higher hashrate indicates that more miners (or more powerful machines) are competing to solve Bitcoin blocks. As competition rises, each individual miner’s chance of earning block rewards decreases, implying declining profitability.

Further hurting miner revenue are low transaction fees. As of now, the average Bitcoin transaction fee hovers around $1, down from over $16 per transfer in April last year, according to YCharts.

The low transaction fees and rising hashrate forced public miners to sell over 40% of their BTC production in March — the highest since late 2024.

Firms like Hive, Bitfarms and Ionic Digital reportedly sold more than 100% of their monthly output.

Magazine: Altcoin season to hit in Q2? Mantra’s plan to win trust: Hodler’s Digest, April 13 – 19

Cryptocurrency firms and exchanges are increasingly moving into Wall Street territory, launching more traditional investment offerings and showcasing the increasing connection between crypto and traditional finance (TradFi).

“There’s a growing synergy between traditional financial investments and the emerging crypto space,” according to Gracy Chen, the CEO of Bitget, the world’s sixth-largest crypto exchange.

“Crypto players are now checking out traditional finance as they see the opportunity to bridge it,” Chen told Cointelegraph.

“The lines are blurring — investors want flexibility, and products that can straddle both worlds are naturally attractive,” Chen said. “Some players see TradFi as a safety net; others, like Bitget, see it as a launchpad for broader adoption.” She added:

“In a volatile market, integration is smarter than isolation.”

Related: Trump’s tariff escalation exposes ‘deeper fractures’ in global financial system

Chen’s comments come a week after crypto exchange Kraken launched access to 11,000 US-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as the first part of a global expansion into TradFi offerings, Cointelegraph reported on April 14.

Kraken’s expansion into traditional stock offerings was announced a week after the S&P 500’s record-breaking two-day loss of over $5 trillion, triggered by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal import tariffs announcement on April 2.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong echoed a similar vision. During the company’s latest earnings call, Armstrong said Coinbase aims to help modernize the global financial system and bring more of the world’s GDP onto crypto rails.

“We think that’s a more efficient, fair, free world that will accelerate progress, and it creates economic freedom,” he said during Coinbase’s latest earnings call.

Related: 70% chance of crypto bottoming before June amid trade fears: Nansen

Crypto and TradFi relationship is “inherently symbiotic” 

The relationship between “digital assets and more traditional assets is inherently symbiotic,” a spokesperson for Coinbase, the world’s third-largest crypto exchange, told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Core to our mission to enable economic freedom by onboarding one billion users to crypto, is supporting more of ‘traditional finance’ to be integrated with crypto.”

“As regulatory clarity and institutional adoption increase globally, we expect more of the global GDP to be running on crypto rails,” the spokesperson added.

Related: Bitcoin rally above $100K may follow US Treasury buybacks — Arthur Hayes

Blockchain technology brings “speed and transparency” while TradFi introduces “trust, scale and compliance,” in an “inevitable convergence,” Omri Hanover, general manager at Gems Trade cryptocurrency platform, told Cointelegraph.

“Together, TradFi and crypto unlock new pathways for both retail and institutional investors, especially those seeking exposure to digital assets without navigating the full complexity of native crypto products,” he explained.

Traditional investment platforms such as eToro and Robinhood have also launched cryptocurrency offerings.

Magazine: Altcoin season to hit in Q2? Mantra’s plan to win trust: Hodler’s Digest, April 13 – 19