Everything you need to know about the $50M Mantra Airdrop
Exploring an overlooked outperformer in the RWA sector
Mantra recently announced a 50m OM airdrop which at current market prices represents over $50m of value! This airdrop was earmarked for certain NFTs displayed in the screenshot below. But you might be asking yourself, what exactly is Mantra? Mantra is an RWA focussed L1 which we think might be overlooked.
The RWA narrative ebbs and flows but broadly speaking it has been one of the strongest narratives throughout this current cycle. MKR was the first coin to benefit from some connection to the “real world” through their investments in treasuries. We also identified Canto as a potential RWA play which despite performing very well in the short term following our initial report, has not delivered on the wider vision.
There are also projects like ONDO which has been picked up by fast money as being the RWA horse to bet on. Despite the amusing 1 ONDO = 1 CONDO meme, it’s hard for us to get excited about ONDO at a $7bn+ fully diluted valuation with a huge supply overhand and VC unlocks on the horizon.
Other projects like Centrifuge, while having interesting technology, don’t seem to have been able to achieve significant traction in tokenising real world assets. This is what brings us to Mantra (OM), it’s surprising to us that almost no one talks about this project despite it being one of the best performers in the entire market YTD (from around $0.04 to over $1):
Naturally, we wanted to explore this story and discover whether this is simply a cabal coin being manipulated higher or whether there’s something much more interesting going on.
At a high level, Mantra began building back in 2020, the Mantra chain is a cosmos L1 custom built for asset tokenisation which means an emphasis on security and and customisations to allow the enforcement of regulatory requirements. In their own words, it is a “permissionless blockchain for permissioned applications”.
Through their identification system, users receive a Soulbound NFT/ID which can then be used to KYC across any activity they engage in on the chain.
Some key technical features for the nerds:
• Built using Cosmos SDK, IBC compatible, with CosmWasm supported
• Secured via a sovereign PoS validator set
• Scalable up to 10k TPS
• Built-in Modules, SDKs and APIs to create, trade and manage regulatory compliant RWAs
• Improved User Experience to onboard non-native users and institutions to Web3
Mantra chain is currently on their Hongbai testnet with mainnet coming soon™.
You might be thinking; “they’ve been live for 4 years and are still on testnet!?”. This is because Mantra was not always a chain but began life as a DAO back in 2020. It was a community DAO which got involved in various different initiatives like validating on the Kusama network, developing the DeFi ecosystem in China and various other miscellaneous activities. In 2022, Mantra pivoted to building towards building the chain they are finalising today.
Putting the technology and history to one side, let’s discuss some of the traction Mantra has been seeing.
It was recently announced that Mantra would be partnering with MAG (one of the largest Real Estate developers in Dubai). This partnership involves MAG tokenising the financing of a $500m plot/development allowing on-chain investors to finance the project and then also participate in the equity once it is built.
In practice, as a participant this looks like a bond during the life of the financing period. A bond which pays an 8% yield paid in USDC with additional OM incentives. Once the development is built, participants can either redeem their principal or convert into equity ownership in the property.
Mantra have also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Zand (Dubai based bank) to streamline the process of real-world asset tokenisation, including the identification, listing and distribution of RWAs.
This is part of a wider effort by Mantra to build their credibility and reputation in the UAE region where they hold a licence with the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA). It seems as though Mantra are going super hard on the UAE, with little focus elsewhere for now. Given the relative openness of the regulatory regime in the region along with the booming real estate sector, this focus does make sense.
The MAG<>Mantra announcement is certainly encouraging but it is currently the only public tokenisation project Mantra has onboarded. We’d certainly like to see other developers or asset issuers onboarding over time to prove out the viability of Mantra as a platform for RWAs.
OM currently sits at just under a $1bn FDV with the remaining supply to be distributed via the airdrop campaign they are currently running and roughly 32% of circulating supply staked.
Mantra isn’t a screaming buy but a sub $1bn FDV for a thoughtfully designed L1 which is in the process of achieving product market fit in what could be a key market is not completely outrageous either. OM has certainly earned itself a place on our watchlist!
If you enjoyed and want to see more content like this, feel free to check out the Humble Farmer Army premium discord here.
You’ll get access to:
Weekly Premium Content
An Exclusive Community
DeFi Yield Strategies
Degen Farms & New Launches
DeFi Education & Analysis
And Real-Time DeFi Alerts
Humble Farmers Rejoice!