Analysis: Mantra and Liquidity Providers inflate OM token liquidity by exploiting a data aggregator vulnerability

On April 18th, as reported by Cryptoslate, during a recent episode of the The Chopping Block podcast discussion, it was revealed that Mantra and its affiliated liquidity provider took advantage of a vulnerability in the self-reporting system of a data aggregator to manipulate the liquidity metric of the OM token. They distorted the circulating supply and trading volume to give a false impression of market activity. The Mantra team worked together with the liquidity provider to simulate token trades between controlled addresses and exchanges, inflating the data without significant natural participation. On-chain observers stated that the truly liquid supply of the OM token is less than 1%, yet it appears to be a top 25 asset in terms of market capitalization. This strategy exploited a loophole in the validation process of CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap, as both platforms rely on self-reported data from project teams and do not cross-reference it with exchange listing information and surface-level blockchain analysis. Malicious actors could allocate tokens to the liquidity provider and orchestrate seemingly organic trade activities to avoid scrutiny, even in the absence of retail participation. When a large OM holder sold off, causing an artificial liquidity collapse, the price dropped by 90% within 90 minutes. This event led to the evaporation of a multibillion-dollar market capitalization, exposing the vulnerability of the asset in trading depth.