The token of MANTRA, an Ethereum Virtual Machine layer-1 built for real-world assets such as funds and bonds, plunged 18.5% to a record low shortly before the network stopped producing blocks and was halted following a software exploit.
Chain frozen as the team investigates
MANTRA fell from $0.005060 to an all-time low of $0.004126 around 11:10 p.m. UTC Thursday, according to CoinGecko. It later recovered to about $0.0044 but remained down roughly 10% over 24 hours, while trading volume jumped nearly 600% to $24 million.
The network produced its last recorded block at about 11:13 p.m. UTC, minutes after the token touched its low. MANTRA announced the halt roughly half an hour later, saying all endpoints and transactions were frozen as a precaution while it investigated. The outage affects the chain’s public endpoints, validators, bridge operations and MANTRA-managed links used to communicate with other blockchains.
Upstream dependency exploited
A later update said an attacker had exploited a vulnerability in an “upstream dependency,” meaning software used by MANTRA Chain but developed outside the network itself. “We have identified the vulnerability and are proceeding to prepare a patched release,” the team said.
MANTRA’s validators remain offline while developers prepare and test the fix. Restarting the blockchain will require coordination with the wider group of operators that verify transactions. The project is also tracing fund movements and working with exchanges while it assesses the damage, but has not disclosed which software was exploited, how the attack worked, or whether any assets were lost.
“Our assessment of the full impact is ongoing and we are not yet in a position to confirm the complete scope,” MANTRA said.
A difficult period for MANTRA
The incident follows a difficult stretch for the project and adds to pressure on a sector that has struggled to shake security concerns as institutions weigh tokenizing real-world assets. MANTRA’s former OM token collapsed more than 90% in April 2025 in a bizarre sell-off, wiping out more than $5 billion in market value. Inveniam Capital Partners, which invested $20 million in MANTRA last year, said in June it planned to acquire the project, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter.
