Can Mantra Chain Turn the Tide? $45M Token Injection and EVM Launch Show Revival Intent

After OM’s catastrophic crash in April that wiped out 98% of its value, Mantra Chain is attempting a dramatic turnaround with aggressive capital deployment and a major technical pivot. The project has committed $45M—comprising $25M from the core team plus $20M from institutional backer Inveniam—toward purchasing OM tokens on-chain in a transparent buyback initiative designed to rebuild community confidence and stabilize the bleeding token.

The Recovery Gambit: Why $45M Matters Now

OM currently trades at $0.07 with modest 2.56% daily gains, a far cry from its former status as a leading RWA narrative driver. The token remains under immense seller pressure, having collapsed over 98% in the past year as traders accused the team of mismanagement or deliberate value extraction during the liquidity crisis.

Inveniam’s participation carries weight beyond capital. The firm assumes a validator role, signaling institutional confidence in Mantra’s technical direction. By moving buybacks on-chain and leaving them fully transparent, the project hopes to counter lingering distrust within its decimated community, which still numbers around 35.6K token holders despite mass exodus.

The Technical Lifeline: EVM Migration and September Mainnet Launch

Rather than defending the current chain, Mantra is betting on a fresh start through technological reinvention. The network will debut as an EVM-compatible blockchain by mid-September, positioning itself as a bridge into the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem while maintaining its own infrastructure.

This shift requires a mandatory token migration: all ERC-20 tokens must move to the new Mantra Chain by January 16, 2026. The team increased OM staking rewards to 8% inflation to incentivize validator participation during this transitional phase, with future governance votes determining when rewards normalize.

Currently, Mantra’s total value locked sits below $500K—minimal activity across DeFi apps. The EVM compatibility is designed to attract developers familiar with Ethereum tooling, opening pathways for native versions of established applications and offering developers familiar infrastructure instead of a foreign ecosystem.

Building the Use Case: Stablecoins and RWA Infrastructure

The buyback and chain upgrade alone won’t sustain momentum. Mantra is introducing a yield-bearing stablecoin to generate native utility and capture stablecoin liquidity, which currently sits under $400K. This mechanism would distribute network earnings to all participants, creating sustainable incentive structures.

The network’s true competitive advantage lies in real-world asset tokenization—its original thesis. Ethereum and Solana dominate this space currently, but Mantra claims potential compliance advantages for traditional financial products launching on-chain. The EVM-compatible framework theoretically makes this friendlier for institutional adoption than isolated L1 chains.

The Mantra DAO treasury has contracted to just 14.1K in reserves, reflecting the post-crash era’s resource constraints. The $45M injection and revitalized validator ecosystem represent the project’s only realistic path to ecosystem density.

The Verdict: Revival or Last Gasps?

Mantra faces brutal headwinds. It’s entering an oversaturated L1 landscape years after market leaders established dominance, with a community scarred by collapse and skeptical of execution. The token’s ERC-20 sunsetting deadline and mandatory migration carry execution risk.

Yet the specificity of the plan—transparent buybacks, institutional co-investment, September launch commitment, and RWA positioning—suggests this isn’t merely marketing theater. Whether the market rewards this comeback attempt depends on whether EVM launch delivers genuine developer traction and whether the stablecoin mechanism actually generates sustainable yield.