Mantra Project Reduces Workforce Amid ‘Unsustainable’ Costs

Mantra CEO announces restructuring with staff layoffs due to unsustainable costs.

The CEO of the RWA protocol Mantra, John Patrick Mullin, has announced a restructuring that includes an unspecified number of staff layoffs.

Today, I’m sharing one of the most difficult decisions we’ve had to make at MANTRA.

After the most challenging year MANTRA has faced for a multitude of reasons, I’ve decided to restructure the company. This includes reducing our team size and parting ways with a number of…

— JP Mullin (🕉, 🏘️) (@jp_mullin888) January 14, 2026

He explained the decision was due to “extremely unfortunate and unfair events of April 2025,” a prolonged market downturn, and increased competition, which rendered the company’s cost structure “unsustainable.”

The layoffs affected the business development, marketing, and HR departments.

“I take full responsibility for these decisions and the path that led us here. I understand this is an incredibly difficult situation, especially for those directly affected, their families, and everyone at Mantra. I am particularly sorry for those who are leaving,” wrote Mullin.

In the spring, the OM token price suddenly plummeted by 90%—from around $6.3 to below $0.5. The market cap fell by $5.5 billion. The community suspected fraud. However, Mullin assured that the cause was large-scale liquidations of positions using OM as collateral.

Later, researchers at OddEyeResearch concluded that the coin collapsed due to insider manipulation, with insiders controlling over 90% of the supply.

At the time of writing, OM is trading around $0.08 with a market cap of $93.3 million. At its peak, the figure exceeded $8.2 billion.

TVL in the Mantra ecosystem has decreased by more than 80%—from $4.5 million to the current $862,657.

Mullin stated that the project is focusing on capital efficiency. In early January, it launched the mantraUSD stablecoin, backed by U.S. Treasury bonds, and reminded OM holders of the need to migrate from the Ethereum network to the native blockchain.

“To survive in the current conditions and regain our leadership position, we must radically improve capital efficiency and work with increased focus,” he wrote.

In the coming weeks, the Mantra team will provide more details about their plans, Mullin promised.

Back in July 2025, the company behind MetaMask laid off 47 people.

In August, the team behind the Lido liquid staking platform announced a workforce reduction of about 15%. This was followed by restructuring news in the metaverse project The Sandbox.