Mantra ($OM) Lost $5.5B Market Cap

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Good Morning.

Mantra (OM), one of the most famous RWA-focused L1 chains, just collapsed by 90% in a few hours. Many community members are questioning what happened, with the Mantra team saying that it’s caused by forced liquidations (and that they’re investigating).

The crazy thing? Mantra’s performance in the past year is still better than ETH…

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: CZ Denies Flipping on Justin Sun 🔎 

• Product: Aave Bets Big on GHO 👻 

• Charts: SOL/ETH Ratio ATH, Stable Volumes Surge 🚀 

Check out our latest podcast episode with Morbid19.

You read and share. We listen and improve. Send us feedback at [email protected].

TOGETHER WITH

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WHAT MATTERS

CZ Denies Flipping on Justin Sun in DOJ Deal

State of play: Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao has denied a Wall Street Journal report alleging he provided evidence against TRON founder Justin Sun as part of his plea deal with the US Department of Justice.

• Responding on X, CZ said, “People who become gov witnesses don’t go to prison... I heard someone paid WSJ employees to smear me.”

• Justin Sun also dismissed the claims, calling CZ his “mentor and close friend.”

• The WSJ also reported that Binance executives met with the US Treasury to reduce oversight imposed by two monitorships following the DOJ settlement.

What’s next: Although CZ argued that witnesses don’t end up in prison, that isn’t always the case. Caroline Ellison, who cooperated in the FTX case, received a reduced sentence but still served time.

For builders and investors: We’ll see more news uncovering events from the crypto era from the 2021-2023 era, even if the US is getting friendlier towards the crypto space.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

Aave Bets Big on GHO

In a recent episode of The Crypto Beat, Aave-Chan Initiative founder Marc Zeller outlined why the GHO stablecoin is central to Aave’s growth strategy. GHO saw a 10x supply increase in 2024, and Aave aims for another 5x jump in 2025.

• Aave is targeting 1B GHO in circulation in 2025. According to Zeller, GHO is significantly more profitable than traditional borrowing.

• He claims that "1 GHO minted generates the same revenue as $10 borrowed."

• Despite only ~$200M GHO in circulation, it already contributes 10% of Aave DAO’s revenue.

• GHO could account for half of all protocol revenue if the supply goal is hit.

• Aave also plans to reinvest profits from rival stablecoin activity into GHO, using competitors’ demand to fuel its own growth.

Other cool products:

• Bigcoin, a P2P electronic big cash system.

• DeFi Choice,a decentralized voting platform.

• ZEROBASE, a zk-powered staking product on stablecoins.

• subs.fun, a platform offering tokenized subforums with AI agents.

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

SOL/ETH Ratio Hits All-Time High

State of play: Solana’s price has surged over 10% in the past week while Ethereum has dropped by a similar amount, pushing the SOL/ETH ratio to a new all-time high of 0.081.

• That’s a nearly 40% jump since January, highlighting Solana’s growing momentum.

• At the same time, the ETH/BTC ratio has dropped to 0.019, its lowest since early 2020.

• Amid the market shifts, Vitalik Buterin hinted on X that Ethereum upgrades could start rolling out faster after the upcoming Pectra upgrade, set for May 7.

• Pectra will bring major changes like account abstraction, higher staking caps, and improvements for rollups.

• Vitalik also teased future updates like "Glamsterdam", saying there’s strong agreement among researchers to prioritize gas limit increases.

Our take: It’s becoming clearer than ever that SOL is now a genuine contender to ETH’s 2nd rank status in the crypto markets — at least in terms of developer mindshare and adoption.

OTC and Stablecoin Volumes Surge in Early 2025

State of play: Institutional crypto trading soared in Q1 2025, with OTC volumes up 141% and stablecoin activity rising 158% YoY, according to Finery Markets.

• The surge was driven by growing confidence in stablecoins and favourable US regulatory shifts under President Trump.

• Bitcoin, Ether, and stablecoins made up 95.3% of all trades, showing limited institutional interest in altcoins.

• Crypto-to-stablecoin transactions grew 5x YoY, reflecting a strong preference for on-chain dollar equivalents.

• Circle’s USDC saw the biggest boost, with volumes increasing 32x YoY in Europe after winning the first MiCA license.

• Meanwhile, Tether’s USDT was delisted by several exchanges in the region.

Our Take: Unsurprising given the stablecoin war.

QUICK BITES

• SOL/ETH price ratio hits an all-time high.

• MANTRA's 88% crash sparks over $71M in liquidations.

• CryptoPunk whale pleads guilty to hiding $13M profits from IRS.

• US prosecutors say DOJ crypto shift won’t affect Do Kwon’s case.

• CZ downplays WSJ claim that he provided evidence against Justin Sun.

• SEC & Binance file joint motion for another 60-day pause in legal dispute.

• Metaplanet becomes the 9th largest public BTC holder, holding 4,525 BTC.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

• Jacob Zhao’s read on stablecoin yield strategies.

• Corgil’s read on Ostium: trade anything like a perp.

• Knower’s read on unpacking decentralized training.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.