John Patrick Mullin, CEO of the RWA protocol Mantra, announced a restructuring that includes an unspecified number of layoffs within the project.
Today, I’m sharing one of the most difficult decisions we’ve had to make at MANTRA.
— JP Mullin (🕉, 🏘️) (@jp_mullin888) January 14, 2026
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…
He attributed the decision to the "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 will affect the business development, marketing, and HR departments.
“I take full responsibility for these decisions and for the path that led us here. I understand that 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 us,” Mullin wrote.
This spring, the price of the OM token suddenly plummeted by 90% — from around $6.3 to below $0.5. The market capitalization dropped by $5.5 billion. The community speculated about potential fraud. However, Mullin assured that the cause was large-scale liquidations of positions using OM as collateral.
Later, researchers from OddEyeResearch concluded that the coin's collapse was due to insider manipulation, with insiders controlling over 90% of the supply.
At the time of writing, OM is trading at around $0.08 with a market cap of $93.3 million. At its peak, the market cap exceeded $8.2 billion.
The total value locked (TVL) in the Mantra ecosystem has decreased by over 80% — from $4.5 million to the current $862,657.
Source: DefiLlama.
Mullin stated that the project is focusing on capital efficiency. In early January, they launched the mantraUSD stablecoin, backed by U.S. Treasury obligations, 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 enhanced focus,” he wrote.
In the coming weeks, the Mantra team will provide more details about their plans, Mullin promised.
Recall that in July 2025, MetaMask's developer laid off 47 employees.
In August, the Lido liquid staking platform announced a staff reduction of about 15% following reports of restructuring in the metaverse project The Sandbox.