MANTRA falls 10% as network halt freezes all transactions

MANTRA fell 9.8% to $0.0045 after the MANTRA Chain halted network operations Aug. 21, freezing all transactions and endpoints during an investigation into an unidentified incident.

"We will not resume the network until we are confident it is safe to do so," the MANTRA team said in a status update, adding that engineering and security teams are investigating alongside external partners.

Trading volume rose 591% to $22.7 million, while the token's 24-hour low reached $0.00413. The token set a new all-time low during the session before partially recovering, per Cointelegraph data. Market capitalization stood at approximately $27.8 million based on a circulating supply of 6.3 billion tokens, per CoinGecko data. The seven-day decline reached about 12.8%.

The halt affects validators, public blockchain endpoints, MANTRA Bridge migration operations and managed Inter Blockchain Communication relays. Upbit suspended deposits and withdrawals for the native token, while trading on centralized exchanges continues independently because internal orders do not require on-chain transactions.

MANTRA has not disclosed the suspected cause, the block height where the incident began, or whether an attacker gained access to funds. No independent security researcher had released a confirmed transaction trail showing stolen funds at the time of writing. The project has not indicated it is considering a rollback, asset freeze or chain state modification.

The incident affects infrastructure built for tokenized real-world assets. MANTRA previously created a $108.8 million fund for RWA projects with a planned four-year deployment period. The project also announced in June that strategic investor Inveniam Capital Partners would acquire the platform, with the deal scheduled to close in the third quarter of this year.

The current MANTRA token followed a March 2026 rebrand and one-for-four token split, replacing the former OM ticker without changing holders' proportional value. The original OM token separately lost more than 90% during its 2025 collapse, which the project attributed to forced exchange liquidations.

MANTRA said it would keep the network offline until teams confirm a restart is safe. The next update will need to identify the affected software or infrastructure, establish whether the chain's recorded state remains valid and explain any required patch. Validators would then need to install or approve the relevant changes before block production could resume.

Users must wait for an official root cause assessment, recovery plan and notice that validators and exchange transfers have resumed. The project warned against people offering "recovery" assistance, a common method used by scammers during blockchain disruptions.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.