Hello Sherpas, hope you all had an exciting March ending with wholesome Easter celebrations! There is a lot to unpack this month as team MANTRA was busy with multiple exciting engagements.

Preparation for the Hongbai Incentivized Testnet pushed ahead at full speed, and our efforts were matched by an overwhelming response from our beloved Sherpas with now over 80,000 waitlist sign-ups and still counting!

Our CEO & Co-Founder, John Patrick Mullin, was invited to the Digital Asset Summit 2024 by Blockworks in London, to speak about MANTRA’s role in RWA tokenization. MANTRA leaders also participated in various YouTube and X Spaces discussions.

Here’s a summary of all the important events from the world of MANTRA for the month of March.

MANTRA Hongbai Incentivized Testnet

We have already received over 80,000 sign-ups for the MANTRA Hongbai Incentivized Testnet. We’re grateful for all the Sherpas’ unwavering support and enthusiasm. Sign up now to join our journey in bringing the world’s financial ecosystem on-chain.

DAO Proposals

• A community member has submitted a DAO proposal for the establishment of a permissionless community staking platform. Read more here.

• Following the recently passed DAO proposal, there will soon be a new community-led platform for $OM staking on ETH, Polygon, and BSC. Read more here.

Futures Listings on Renowned CEXs

• Binance Global listed $OM/TRY Spot trading pair on 5th March.

• KuCoin Futures launched $OM USDT-M Perpetual Contract with upto 30x leverage. $OM/USDT & $OM/BTC spot trading pairs are already available on KuCoin.

• Bybit also launched $OM USDT-M Perpetual Contract, allowing users to trade with upto 25x leverage.

$OM Staking Updates

• Following a recently passed DAO proposal to upgrade $OM’s tokenomics for MANTRA Chain, upcoming changes to the OM staking model have been outlined. Read more to know how to be eligible for the 1.35x OM rewards!

• You can stake $OM tokens on: https://app.mantra.finance/staking

Interview with CEO

• John Patrick Mullin joined the Digital Asset Summit 2024, by Blockworks, in London, where he discussed the future of finance with the power of RWA tokenization. He attended an elite panel alongside leaders from CitiBank, Ava Labs, BNY Mellon and Blockworks.

• John also appeared on a YouTube community call on 6th March, where he explained MANTRA’s recent developments and progress towards bringing RWAs on-chain.

• Apart from these, John joined Suhoor sessions on Binance Live, where he spoke about MANTRA’s infrastructure for RWA tokenization.

Partnerships & Developments

• Lumia (ORN) has joined MANTRA to bring greater liquidity to dApps building on MANTRA Chain. Lumia serves as a central hub for liquidity in the crypto space, and this partnership will enable dApps on the MANTRA Chain to effortlessly access this multichain liquidity, enhancing capital efficiency while reducing the necessity for large capital deposits in smart contracts.

MANTRA Features

• CoinDesk featured an article about how MANTRA has successfully raised $11 million in a fund-raising round led by Shorooq Partners, a leading venture and technology investor from the MENA and Asia. The article also highlights MANTRA’s plans for the launch of the Hongbai Incentivized Testnet.

• We published an article on our Medium page about how MANTRA seeks to bridge the gap between traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) by leveraging blockchain technology, offering a secure and compliant ecosystem for asset tokenization.

• Hackernoon invited John to share his thoughts in the “Behind the Startup” Series Interview. Read this in-depth Q&A session to dive deep into how we’re bridging TradFi and Crypto.

X Spaces

We’ve reached a milestone of 100,000 strong Sherpas Community on X! Please continue supporting us in this long journey that we have just taken baby steps on.

Like last month, MANTRA Co-Founders Jayant Ramanand and John Patrick Mullin appeared in various X Spaces discussions, discussing various topics including how MANTRA is leading the way for the $16 trillion regulatory-compliant RWA tokenization industry, the greater potential of traditional illiquid asset tokenization, and so on. The list of broadcasts includes:

• Gate.io community | 11th March

• Hacken | 13th March

• KuCoin community | 14th March

• MANTRA community | 25th March

Community Announcements

• We introduced the MANTRA Ambassador Program, which provides our passionate community members the opportunity to join the revolution of shaping the future of RWA tokenization. Fill out this form for the chance to join the program.

• We’ve also successfully shortlisted and reached out to the first group of Ambassadors. The Zealy quests are now live, exclusively for the selected Ambassadors.

• We are organizing a RWA-Focused Hackathon, which will provide a common platform for developers, builders, and industry experts to collaborate. Fill out this form to join the hackathon.

As March comes to an end, we will be focussing a lot of our energies on the development of the Hongbai Testnet, apart from building stronger community and industry connections. As always, stay tuned to this platform to get updates on all the important events from the world of MANTRA.