Weekly wrap: Mantra’s collapse, Russia’s crypto seizures and the fight for privacy

Mantra’s token plunged amid alleged manipulation; Russia approved confiscation of cryptocurrencies for the state; the crypto community rallied to defend privacy—plus other events of the week.

Relative calm amid “tariff chaos”

Bitcoin opened the week at $84,360. On 14 April it touched about $85,500.

Analysts noted a rise in $100,000 bitcoin call options, signalling a shift in market mood towards the bulls.

NYDIG stressed bitcoin’s relative stability amid “tariff chaos”.

“Historically, when risk appetite broadly weakens, we’ve recorded stress in digital assets. That has not occurred so far,” the company’s review said.

Analyst Greg Cipolaro said bitcoin had not escaped volatility but “is doing much better than many other asset classes”. Unlike in traditional markets, the volatility metric did not spike to historic levels and “was relatively stable”.

By Monday evening the price dipped, but on Tuesday, 15 April, it reached a weekly high above $86,000. By day’s end bitcoin had dropped about 3.3% to a local low near $83,150.

In an April 16 note, QCP Capital experts said bitcoin lacks “safe-haven” status.

The idea of an “alternative store of value” remains unproven; positioning is “defensive”, they said. Participants are still focused on hedging risks until there is greater clarity.

According to the firm, the US dollar and Treasuries have also lost their defensive properties.

By the evening of 17 April, the chart had returned to $85,000.

Glassnode noted that bitcoin’s realised capitalisation hit a record $872bn, but monthly growth slowed to 0.9%—a sign of risk aversion.

On Saturday, 19 April, the price approached $85,000, but pulled back to $84,500 the next day.

At press time bitcoin trades at $84,478—up 0.14% from Monday.

Ether started the week at $1,610. On 14 April it hit a local peak at $1,678.

On 16 April the chart fell to a weekly low of $1,546, then quickly recovered to $1,590–1,600.

By Friday, 19 April, the price reached $1,620, then drifted lower over the weekend alongside bitcoin.

At press time ether changes hands at $1,578, down about 2% on the week.

Among other top-ten assets by market value, only SOL (+5.5%) and BNB (+0.6%) rose.

Dogecoin fell 6%, ADA 5.3%, XRP 4.7%, TRX 2.9%.

Manipulation sent Mantra’s token into freefall

On 13 April, the price of OM—the native token of Mantra’s RWA project—plunged by around 90% in roughly three hours, from about $6.3 to below $0.5.

According to an investor known as Sjuul, Mantra’s developers controlled around 90% of OM’s total supply. Alongside other factors, that eroded trust. He said the team:

• used a market maker to prop up the price;
• quietly altered the tokenomics;
• delayed the promised airdrop.

A transfer of 3.9m OM from a wallet allegedly linked to the project to the OKX exchange stoked fears of a dump.

“Rumours circulated that Mantra struck private deals with investors, offering tokens at massive discounts—some at 50% and even more,” Sjuul said.

As OM slid below those buyers’ entry prices, panic set in and leveraged positions were liquidated.

On-chain analysts confirmed large transfers of OM to OKX and Binance in the preceding days.

The project said OM’s market moves were “caused by reckless forced closures initiated by centralized exchanges on OM holders’ accounts”. The team said “extremely sudden liquidation of positions was initiated without proper warning or notification”.

Mantra CEO John Patrick Mullin insisted:

• there was no hack;
• the team and major investors did not actively sell OM;
• insiders, including project members, did not profit from the price moves.

He confirmed the crash was triggered by large-scale liquidations of OM used as collateral.

Some specialists suggested that Mantra’s team and market-making partners manipulated liquidity metrics for OM.

Experts said the scheme distorted the token’s market indicators. Market makers executed numerous sham trades between controlled addresses, creating the appearance of activity and inflating volumes.

OM thus landed among the top 25 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation even though, by some estimates, less than 1% of coins were truly liquid.

Before the crash, OM’s circulating market value exceeded $6bn, while the protocol’s TVL was just over $15m.

Hasib Qureshi, a managing partner at Dragonfly, said the manipulation tactics exploited validation gaps at CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. Both data aggregators primarily rely on project-provided information, exchange listings and basic on-chain analytics.

But interested parties can work around those checks. By distributing tokens to market makers, they stage trading activity and even mimic broad retail participation.

The fabricated liquidity in OM collapsed when a large holder tried to liquidate a position.

The incident revealed the token’s true market depth to be largely illusory, experts said.

Russia approves crypto confiscation

Russian authorities agreed to introduce a mechanism for seizing cryptocurrencies in criminal cases.

Amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes, recognising digital assets as property, were approved by the government’s lawmaking commission.

The document lays out investigative procedures and creates conditions for freezing cryptocurrencies.

The amendments clarify how investigators can seize crypto. Depending on how it is stored, assets are either moved to specialised addresses or the devices holding wallets or access codes are seized. The goal is to preserve funds and block transactions until a criminal case concludes.

Grigory Osipov, director of investigations at Shard, told ForkLog the seizure mechanism reflects an attempt by Russian authorities to adapt to the digital economy.

In practice, he said, implementation may face serious technical and legal hurdles. For example, if a wallet owner does not provide access, law enforcement—even with expert help—will struggle to gain direct control over funds because of blockchain’s properties.

“Yes, there is a chance passwords are saved on a phone or reused across different apps, but if the owner follows digital hygiene, accessing the wallet will be difficult. The same applies to keys found in the the “pension” folder: if the wallet owner is duly careful, they will not leave such ‘evidence’,” Osipov explained.

The lack of a developed mechanism for interacting with foreign crypto platforms—many outside Russia’s legal jurisdiction—creates further complications, he added.

Osipov also noted that the absence of comprehensive regulation of digital currencies in the country means seized and sold assets may be handled in ways that upset the balance of market participants’ rights, increasing the risk of corruption or unlawful pressure on users.

In 2025 Rosfinmonitoring will launch a registry of suspicious crypto addresses. The information appears in the technical specification for upgrading the agency’s IT system, posted on the public procurement website.

The registry will include data from banks, the tax service, law enforcement and international partners.

The aim is to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The system will automatically analyse incoming information and compile lists of addresses linked to extremist activity or risky transactions.

What to discuss with friends?

• Hackers stole $100,000 from the CEO of Emblem Vault via Zoom.
• Media reported suspicious deaths of Chinese AI experts.
• A former SEC chair admitted: bitcoin is the only worthwhile cryptoasset.
• Donald Trump demanded the Fed chair’s resignation.

Memes and AI dominated the first quarter

CoinGecko analysts published a report on dynamics and key narratives in the crypto industry in Q1 2025.

Of the 20 most popular digital assets over the period, six were memes and five AI. The former captured 27.1% of global investor attention; the latter 35.7%.

The “Made in USA” share reached 9.5%. Interest in the category spiked after US president Donald Trump signed an order creating a crypto-reserve task force.

Also in the top 20 were the Solana, Ethereum, Base and Sui ecosystems.

The correlation of the S&P 500 with bitcoin was 0.85, and with the overall crypto market 0.77.

Both metrics dipped slightly versus the fourth quarter of 2024.

Ethereum’s supply increased by 185,000 ETH. Analysts recorded only three deflationary days from January to March.

Issuance was 232,200 ETH; 47,200 ETH were burned.

The top “burners” were intra-network transfers (3,400 ETH), Uniswap (3,200 ETH) and Tether (2,500 ETH).

Base accounted for 26% of all transactions in the EVM ecosystem (8.6m), TRON for 18.6% (7.7m).

The average daily figure across 14 tracked blockchains rose to 33m. By comparison, Ethereum mainnet averaged 1.2m.

After the “fiasco” of LIBRA, interest in the meme-coin category slumped. That was reflected in a drop in new launches on Pump.fun by 56.3% in a day, to 31,000.

TVL in DeFi fell 27.5%, from $177.4bn to $128.6bn.

Ethereum’s share tumbled from 63.5% to 56.6% ($112.6bn to $72.7bn). Solana and Base posted absolute declines of 23.5% and 15.3%, respectively.

Launched on 6 February, Berachain jumped to sixth place with $5.2bn in TVL.

Among individual categories, CDP stablecoins (+9.5%) and RWA (+12.7%) grew.

The steepest declines were in liquid staking (-39%) and restaking (-36.7%) owing to ether’s lower price.

Only yield-farming protocols fared worse (-49.8%), which analysts attributed to users’ “defensive” stance.

Also on ForkLog:

• Bybit will shut down most Web3 services.
• Google will tighten requirements for crypto ads in Europe.
• Tether will join the OCEAN mining pool by a Bitcoin Core developer.
• A critical vulnerability was found in chips for bitcoin wallets.

“Privacy is normal”

Binance faced criticism for including the “privacy cryptocurrency” Zcash in a delisting vote.

Binance, you’re considering delisting Zcash!?

What kind of world are you creating? Do you want your children to grow up in peace and prosperity, or a Black Mirror episode?@_RichardTeng, Privacy is normal! Support privacy by supporting Zcash, like Coinbase, Gemini, and Kraken!

— zooko???? ⓩ (@zooko) April 14, 2025

Project founder Zooko Wilcox addressed exchange CEO Richard Teng:

“You are seriously considering delisting Zcash? What kind of world do you want to build for future generations—thriving or oppressive, like in ‘Black Mirror’?”

StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson and Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet underscored the importance of privacy, noting the coin’s role in protecting personal data.

Cosmos founder Ethan Buchman called privacy “a fundamental human right”.

Privacy is normal. Better yet a fundamental human right.@binance @_RichardTeng don’t delist ZCash https://t.co/La3Wa73QxL

— Ethan Buchman (?,?) (@buchmanster) April 15, 2025

On 14 April, a day before the Binance–Zcash debate intensified, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin published an essay on the importance of privacy for decentralisation and freedom.

“Who has information has power. If data are controlled centrally, it threatens freedom,” he believes.

Buterin wrote that privacy is key to preserving personal freedom and protection from the influence of corporations and states. In his view, the idea of total transparency in society is attractive but no longer works.

As potential remedies, the programmer proposes:

• using ZK-SNARKs, FHE, MPC;
• developing local computation—the less data go to the cloud, the better;
• requiring device openness—neurointerfaces and cameras must be verifiable.

“We can get a world where technology protects privacy rather than destroys it,” he concluded.

What else to read?

In a new piece, we examine examples and principles of manipulation in DeFi.

We unpack Polkadot’s updated economic model and forthcoming upgrades.

In our regular digest, we round up the week’s key cybersecurity events.