Real World Accountability: MANTRA Update - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2025

Thank you guys. Good morning everybody. Welcome to another year of Token 2049. I don't know if being the only person who's spoken to every single Token 249 is a compliment or I'm one of the old guys that stuck around uh for too long. But guys, thank you very much for being here uh at this special one-on-one session.

Over the next couple minutes, my goal is very uh simple is to hear from JP Mullen, the founder of Mantra about the the months after the the incident that we had on April 13 uh last year. I just want to important before we get into the panel to give a bit of a bit of context to this panel. Um Mantra had an incident on April 13. uh JP Mullins and Montre's first inerson interview uh was with me actually in Dubai at Token 249 and my conditions uh to do these interviews that are that I can ask anything I want uh there's no PR team blocking it and I can actually have a proper conversation and on stage I asked JP if he would be willing to come back in Singapore 6 months later to give an update which he accepted and actually to your credit you guys are here now uh giving this uh the session um and doing this one-on-one which I really appreciate actually uh on it. So my conditions are always the same that I can come and I can ask them anything I want on that perspective.

Uh JP you know I've interviewed hundreds of founders and cos both for my CNBC show my podcast. Many of them after such incidents they hide behind their lawyers or PR teams. So actually I want to commend you for actually being very open and having this conversation.

Appreciate that.

It's been 6 months since the April 13 um incidents and events. First of all before we talk about mantra how are you doing personally? I mean to be honest it's it was a a challenging situation to deal with as I'm sure anyone can imagine. Um you know primarily for our community uh most importantly for our investors uh it was an ordeal that we had to come through together and I had to lead from the front. Um, so stepping up to the plate, uh, taking it head-on and dealing with it is just something that I had to do.

And for me personally, um, that was my moment to, you know, step up. And, uh, it hasn't been easy, but to be completely honest, I'm a optimist at heart. I always see glass half glass half full. And, um, I think there's a lot of silver linings that have come from the situation. and as shitty and as hard as it was to deal with.

Um we're moving on uh stronger than honestly ever in many cases. Um we're executing at a high level and um you know personally uh just been focused on getting us back in you know in the right right right order and and and in a way also focusing on just like blocking out distractions, focusing on the people who care about us and me and and and our community and uh you know not you know blocking out the noise.

Yeah. Yeah, because obviously the market cap from a couple billion to 200 million token $6 to uh 20 cents or whatever that that's a big impact actually. Do you feel a lot of solidarity from the crypto community or it was more how was the reaction of people around you?

Yeah, you know, I think it it's an interesting situation because you get to see who are the people who really are there for the right reasons and are there to stand with you both when you know things are going really well and also when the when when shit's tough. Um, so it it's actually been a good situation because you can really see who your real friends are and who your real supporters are. And you know, I am fortunate that, you know, we had a lot of core people around us that have stuck with us through through a very challenging time. And, you know, that shows in in many ways. Um, but in certain cases, like almost 90% of our investors reinvested into the project again and have doubled or tripled down in many cases.

So, I think that's a testament to, you know, the people who back us, to our supporters, um, and to the team for, you know, showing up when it when it got tough. So actually to give an update to the to the audience since when we were on stage last time six months ago uh you promised that obviously things were continue to be built and obviously you guys working hard and that you were going to give an update. So what's the message you have like give us an update on what's been happening last couple months?

Yeah to be honest a lot we've been really busy. Um you we've been focusing on a number of things from you know the init one of the initial ones that was a little bit controversial was I burned a bunch of tokens.

Yep.

So I I I followed through with that promise obviously burned 150 million tokens at the time. I think that was like 80 $90 million um as a show of solidarity to the community and you know at some point if if we bring it back and I do a good job then the community can give them back to me if they feel fit. Um so that was that was something we followed up with. We've had a number of major integrations which I think was an important step of showing that hey legitimate institutions looked into this and said you know we weren't you know there in in a bad way. Binance integrated our mainet about a month after the incident.

Uh we got listed on Upbit as well as Bitum and Upbit is obviously notorious for significant amounts of due diligence and and research. Um so we've had major exchange integrations for the mainet chain. Uh we raised a $20 million strategic funding round um from a new investor out of the United States called Invenium uh deeply backed into the region uh in the UAE I should say. They've raised you know several hundred million from the likes of G42 um and and are really focused on integrating a lot of their technology into our stack which is awesome. uh we announced the $25 million buyback program which you started to commence and we'll aim to basically re repurchase and lock uh roughly 10 to 15% of the circulating supply out of circulation.

Um so that's ongoing and that's you know that's been that's been really good. Um we just recently launched and upgraded our chain. So we initially built as a Cosmos chain. We upgraded about a week and a half ago to full EVM compatibility. We're the first multivvm uh real world asset blockchain.

Yep. Um so you know we've been busy that's you know that's a lot of stuff.

What is that change to make it not EVM compatible? Like what do you think the practical impact will be?

To be honest it's been it's been huge. Um obviously uh we had some technical decisions on why we were using you know the Cosmos SDK as a as a base which we still feel very strongly about the Cosmos SDK come BFT um IBC as a you know interoperability solution. Uh but you know to be honest there's just not a lot of cosmos devs out there. Um so you know I think just launching EVM and having you know full compatibility across the EVM stack was really important and you know post launch we've already had a number of different DAPs and protocols and assets that are starting to be issued on the mainet. Um and that's only really the tip of the iceberg.

So the ability to integrate with um you know any number of different solutions providers. Uh it's just a lot easier, it's cheaper, it's faster. So it's sped up our speed of execution significantly and you know we're we're we're pretty excited about you know coming into that world. that 20 million you mentioned you guys just raised like how was that process after let's say the event it must have been a different fundraising environment and conversation

you know it was an interesting one because initially when we got in touch with with with Invenium we'd actually known them from before from our prior in previous investor Sherukq and we had been talking to them about a number of things and they had reached out really right after the incident and and wanted to be helpful and um it was a long road I mean it was initially supposed to be like a quick trade quick support and we were supposed to announce it actually at token 249 Dubai So um that did not happen. Uh it took you know roughly another three four months of very very deep due diligence um very deep research. I mean um I can say for one thing uh Clifford Chance is very thorough um in their research and diligence and and and that was a process. Um but I think that was a strengthening process if anything because it really got us to know each other better. um we really were very forthcoming on everything and they got to see you know what we're all about, what we're made of and you know form a much deeper personal relationship and we're super excited about working with these guys.

Um we have a number of really strong uh you know integrations and partnerships coming and we're you know again one of those silver linings like I think this is one of those situations where it's a little bit of a blessing in the skies. You know shitty situation to deal with but we're going to come out stronger with a new strong partner that you know we're super excited to work with. One thing I think you did right at the time was as soon as the incident happened and maybe kudos to marketing team, PR team, but you were on TV. I know you came on my TV show at a time, but actually you were very transparent about what happened at the time. How was your obviously a mantra has one differentiator or others is the fact that you have a full viral license in Dubai by the regulator.

How was that conversation with the regulator during the event and post the months afterwards?

Yeah. I mean, so for those who don't know, I mean, basically it went down overnight on a Sunday, April 13th, April 14th morning. Um, I was in Korea. We were hosting an event there. Um, I woke up or got woken up by the hotel at like 4:30, 5:00 a.

m. Um, the worst morning of my life, to be honest. Um, but the first call that we did after we figured out what was going on, uh, was Touvara.

Oh.

Um, and I think when you're working in a regulated environment, a compliant environment, you know, regulators don't like surprises. So, better to be forthcoming, be transparent, be communicative, and we've kind of kept that montrust, so to speak, um, throughout all of our dealings, interactions with them. And I think that's also helped build a lot of trust. Um, and they know, you know, that, you know, doesn't always work, doesn't always go right, things are going to happen. Um, but if you can man up, step up to the plate, and communicate and not run, uh, that that means a lot to people.

And particularly in a in a in a from a regulator perspective, again, just showing up and saying in advance when things go wrong, we can figure these things out. but we can work through them together. Um being transparent and and and responsible for things. But that was a I think that was a big

I guess the fact that they also know the crypto space very well probably played a big positive role on that side as well. I mean like I'm quite curious what's your view on you know when I look at the incident and everything that happened from externally what it what's your view on the role of the crypto exchanges in such events because there's obviously lots of tokens out there a lot of founders have uh their own tokens and the role that or even the responsibility does exchanges have in dealing with using X token as collateral on on the platform. Yeah, I mean it's it's obviously an important one and it is also very tricky. You know, as we were talking about offstage, you know, there's so many different considerations about, you know, market cap, about liquidity, about what is the LTV on, you know, leverage that you can take in the system. And in and in our case, I mean, I think it wasn't necessarily a targeted event, but it was a very unfortunate one that we just got on the wrong side of uh but legitimately, it could happen to anyone.

And I think you know we've seen many cases where you see tokens plummet unfortunately you know overnight or seemingly overnight. Um and the exchanges do have a role to play in that and you know risk management compliance all these things are important but there's no like unifying body to to make sure that this is all done in a you know globally regulated globally transparent way because again you know even in the wake of our incident if you're just looking at it from a UAE lens that's very different than a global lens and you know jurisdictional rights and and and and whatnot makes it challenging to actually unearth what really happened sometimes. Um but we are confident that uh the truth will come to light um in in the near future.

Interesting. Yeah. Because I'm not sure it's a regulatory matter. I think it's more market practice and absolutely that need to come together. Absolutely.

On that front,

one other thing we have three minutes left. I mean what's your um you obviously been through a lot on this right? Um

what have you learned as a as an entrepreneur like because obviously you after an event like this you need to motivate your team, you need to keep your team, your clients. What have like what's the one piece of advice you have for other entrepreneurs? Because this may happen to anybody. Yeah,

fair.

Yeah, I mean honestly most importantly like you just got to show up. You got to be there. Um it's not always easy but sometimes you got to like have a smile on your face and if you show the positivity that you can get through it, it'll be infectious with your team and you know you might feel like literal You might feel like the world is going to end, your baby's going to die. Um, but you have to get up every day and go and just, you know, be that positivity that your team is going to see. And honestly, then they'll follow.

Yeah.

Um, so, you know, it's not always easy, but if you if you do that, you know, we we've gone through this before. This is not our first our first rodeo. And that experience compounds. People ask me a lot like, you know, how are you going to come back from this? And I know I I said it before, but I say it even more now.

Like, this is an inevitability for me. Um, if if I thought it was going to be, you know, successful before after going through a shitty situation like this, a horrible situation, the learning, the growth, the new partners, the new experiences, all these things compound and that is only going to make us better in the future. That's only going to make us stronger. Um, so for me, it's just, you know, you know, keep counting us out, but it's just more motivation. And like to to to to to add to what you just said like do you think this makes you in a way you know if we look at the crypto industry like the buy bit hack this year what happened you know if back in the day Bitfinex and Tether the issues they went through like every these issues a lot of these companies have come back stronger you believe now Mantra is stronger now despite everything that went in 110%.

No doubt about it. I mean, there was things that could have killed us, right? Like, we could have had issues with the regulator. It could have been delisted from Binance. Uh, you know, we could have had all these different issues with with, you know, whatever.

And we haven't yet.

We're we're working on launching new regulated products with with Vara in in the UAE and Dubai. Uh, we have new investors coming in. We've had Binance integrate our chain. We've had them uh become a validator on our network. We've gotten listed on Upit.

All these things have actually gone the other direction of what could have killed us. And if anything, um, you know, we've grown, we've learned, we're executing better, we're executing faster. Uh, we had to be very focused. Block out the noise, block out the Um, focus on what matters and build. And, you know, someone wise men told me that, you know, just don't focus on price.

Just just build for the next month. And, you know, I think that's a good a good mantra. Um, head down, focus, build, ship, and the results will speak for themselves. So, you know, you can say what you want about pumpamentals versus fundamentals, but in mantra, the fundamentals have never been stronger. Yeah, it's uh I can imagine the challenge on that side.

We have 20 seconds. Uh one thing is when you're pitching now mantra, obviously the topic is coming up especially people that want to tokenize something, they want to go on RWA that okay, do we do it on mantra? Do we do it somewhere else? How what's the main argument you're telling them say hey actually come and build on mantra not somewhere else?

I mean in the end of the day one of the main things that we do differentiate ourselves is with the know regulated distribution channels right the var license is a game changer. It gives us an ability to operate in a compliant manner. And to be completely honest, if you're doing real world assets, if you're doing tokenization and you're not doing it in a regulated compliant manner, you're if you're cutting corners and it will come and bite you in the end,

especially in the RWA. Well, JP, I just want to thank you again for being a member of your word of when we were on stage six months ago and accepting to come back here on a really like open conversation. Those things are I really appreciate that. I wish that's a example many others will uh will follow in the crypto community cuz these things happen and actually I appreciate your transparency and what you shared with the community. Thank you very much guys everybody.

That's all the time we have today. Thank you.