When the Sickle Wears a Suit, the Tears of Retail Investors Become the Best Lubricant
In the crypto world on the morning of April 14, 2025, a capital drama more bloody than "Squid Game" unfolded. The MANTRA chain token OM, focusing on the RWA (Real World Asset tokenization) concept, completed a "faith elimination plan" worth $5.5 billion in 90 minutes: the price plummeted from $6.15 to a low of $0.37 within 4 hours, a drop of 94%, equivalent to throwing the Shanghai Center Tower from 632 meters into the Huangpu River, while still managing to send out a leveraged dip-buying guide to onlookers.
After the incident, the project team casually released a statement: "Hey, it's all the exchange's fault for messy liquidation~ Our wallet tokens are all locked up~"
Coinglass data shows that in the past 12 hours, over $47.78 million in long positions and over $18.01 million in short positions were liquidated for OM.
Even more magical was that while retail investors were still fighting for survival in the ICU, OM performed a "zombie-like rebound", surging from $0.37 to $1.2 and triggering another short squeeze, with over $60 million in contract positions vanishing within four hours.
Behind this textbook-level harvesting lies a set of "Chinese-characteristic wheat-cutting paradigms" that integrate PUA rhetoric, token magic, and legal vacuum arbitrage. Today, we'll use a microscope to dissect this crypto version of "The Big Short" and see how retail investors are trained to become "self-motivated fuel".
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Binance founder CZ's response is a textbook example of passing the buck: "CEX shouldn't manage token listings, investors are responsible for themselves". But the truth is:
- Liquidity black hole: OM's daily trading volume is 80% concentrated on Binance/OKX, with exchanges knowingly allowing project party market manipulation while continuing to offer futures contracts;
- Risk management failure: Allowing 500x leverage trading for tokens ranked beyond the top 50 in market cap, equivalent to giving gamblers a rocket launcher;
- Symbiotic interests: Listing fees and transaction fee sharing make exchanges the "water-pumping queens" of the industry chain.
This "being both referee and weapon seller" model has turned the crypto market into Las Vegas - where the house always wins.
【Conclusion】The Ultimate Paradox of the Crypto Market
OM's crash is not coincidental, but inevitable. In this dark forest where "all Altcoins will eventually go to zero", the true crypto spirit should not be about who runs faster, but about recognizing the following realities:
- Technology is innocent, human nature is flawed: RWA was a revolutionary concept, but driven by greed, it became a harvesting tool;
- Regulatory vacuum ≠ free paradise: Unchecked power inevitably leads to corruption, and unregulated markets are inevitably filled with fraud;
- Survival is victory: When you hear about your neighbor Wang getting rich from crypto, automatically imagine the 100 untold bankruptcy stories.
Finally, here's a crypto survival mantra: Be fearful when others are greedy, and run when project teams start talking. After all, your belief is just fuel for the market makers.
