This token didn’t just crash

Plus: CZ says he’s no snitch

GM. The blender’s on – today’s mix includes fresh FUD, frozen dreams, and a splash of whale tears.

📉 The OM collapse.

🍋 News drops: learning about Bitcoin in school, getting charged for hiding NFTs + more

🍍 Market flavor today

You know that ONE night you decide to stay in – and somehow it turns out to be the night your friends do the craziest sh*t? They drive to another city, go skydiving, save someone’s life, and invent 12 inside jokes you’ll never understand…

That’s what skipping the market overview since Monday feels like. Everything went nuts.

But no worries – here’s everything we missed and why Bitcoin’s price chart looks like a heartbeat monitor during a horror movie:

And, before you ask – yes, it’s because of tariffs again.

On Tuesday, Trump decided to pause higher tariffs for over 75 countries – most of them now only have to deal with a 10% tariff for the next 90 days.

Why? They didn’t retaliate and actually reached out to the US to chat.

… except for China.

China raised tariffs on US goods to 125%. So Trump cranked it right back, Soulja Boy-style – he raised tariffs on Chinese imports from 54% to 145%.

And now, China’s like, “Honestly, make it 1,000% – we literally don’t care at this point.” According to them, American goods are already too expensive for the Chinese market – so higher tariffs won’t make much of a difference.

Because of that, they’re done with the retaliation game. But they’re not gonna stop fighting.

Translation: we went from a global trade war to more of a one-on-one match between the US and China (at least for now).

Aaaand that’s not all.

Last week brought in the latest CPI inflation data – and all the numbers came in below expectations.

The market had been begging for a cooler report like this, but the reaction was… meh 😐

Why? Prices had already gone up earlier in the week when the tariff pause was announced, so the inflation numbers got lowkey ignored.

That said, this soft print might be exactly what the Fed needs to step in with a rate cut.

But don’t get too comfy. Prices might increase again soon – especially since the new tariffs kicked in after this latest inflation report was finalized. This means the next round of data might be uglier.

So no, the storm hasn’t passed: the trade war isn’t dead, and uncertainty is still high.

But for now, crypto’s finally catching its breath. Let’s enjoy the peace while it lasts.

🥝 Memecoin harvest

These coins hit the “yo, trust me bro” phase of the cycle.

Data as of 07:30 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

🧃 Drops are dropping

The YHDL listing is so close we can smell it – our partner YouHodler says it’s going live within the next 30 days.

But while you wait, don’t just sit there… Coin Drops are raining down! ☔️

Here’s how to grab yours:

If you’re a new user and you transfer at least 30 YHDL from an external wallet to YouHodler, you’ll enter a Lucky Draw with a chance to win up to $300 in tradable tokens. More YHDL = better odds. Simple as that.

Each person gets one Coin Drop – so make it count!

So yeah, the major cryptos are doing fine today…

But you couldn’t say the same thing about Mantra’s OM (which, FYI, used to be in the top 50).

Yeah, what the actual f— 😀 What happened?? A rug pull?

Well, the Mantra team insists they didn’t sell anything, their tokens are still locked, and wallet activity is public for anyone to check.

So then… who’s to blame?

The team says it was centralized exchanges suddenly closing accounts that held OM during low-activity hours on a Sunday – which triggered a massive sell-off and tanked the price.

But not everyone bought that:

The Sherlock Holmes of crypto, ZachXBT, said it looked like a heavily manipulated coin with too much insider control.

Then came the receipts.

Lookonchain reported that at least 17 wallets sent 43.6M OM (worth around $227M) to exchanges before the crash.

Two of those were tagged as linked to Laser Digital – a Mantra investor.

However, Laser denied it all – said the wallets weren’t theirs and they didn’t sell.

Lookonchain also pointed out that a wallet associated with Shane Shin, founding partner of Mantra investor Shorooq Partners, received 2M OM tokens hours before the crash.

But Shin also denied selling, saying it was just a wallet-to-wallet transfer.

And Mantra’s co-founder John Mullin actually backed that up – said he didn’t know who dumped the tokens, but he was sure it wasn’t Laser, Shin, or any of their major investors.

During this whole mess, Binance and OKX also spoke up – both said they’re monitoring the situation and took action to warn users about volatility.

OKX also pointed out that OM’s tokenomics had changed significantly since late 2024, and they noticed big, possibly coordinated, token movements weeks before the crash.

ZachXBT then dropped this bomb: apparently, certain people were trying to take out massive loans backed by OM right before everything collapsed.

It’s unclear if the Mantra team knew about it tho’.

So, once again… who’s at fault?!

Depends who you ask.

And while we still don’t have the full picture of the situation, one thing’s for sure: trust in OM is shattered.

🍋 News drops

🎓 Lomond School, a private school in Scotland, is working with The Bitcoin Standard author Saifedean Ammous to launch a new curriculum about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Oh, and they’re also accepting Bitcoin for tuition now.

📝 A dude from Pennsylvania pleaded guilty to lying on his taxes. He didn’t report over $13M from selling CryptoPunk NFTs and avoided paying more than $3.2M in taxes.

🧐 Vitalik Buterin thinks the real soul of Ethereum isn’t in the infrastructure layer – it’s in the apps people build on top of it. He says this is where devs need to think carefully about their values, because what they choose to build can shape what Ethereum actually means to the world.

📢 Starting April 23, Google’s tightening the rules for crypto ads in Europe. If you’re running ads for a crypto exchange or wallet, you’ll need to be officially licensed under the MiCA framework or as a CASP.

🤨 Binance co-founder CZ says he didn’t make any deal to snitch on Tron founder Justin Sun. This comes after a WSJ report claimed he agreed to testify as part of his settlement with US DOJ.

🍌 Juicy memes