Today in crypto, MANTRA’s token fell to an all-time low amid a precautionary halt. Bitcoin miners are pouring billions into AI and high-performance computing even as revenue trails investment, while a newly uncovered phishing operation targeted about 885,000 phone numbers worldwide.
MANTRA token sinks 18% to record low amid blockchain halt
MANTRA’s native token sank 18.5% from its 24-hour high to a record low shortly before MANTRA Chain stopped producing blocks and its team announced a precautionary halt over an unexplained incident.
According to CoinGecko, MANTRA fell from $0.005060 to an all-time low of $0.004126 around 11:00 pm UTC on Thursday. It later recovered to about $0.0044 but remained down roughly 10% over 24 hours, while trading volume climbed nearly 600% to $24 million.
MANTRA said Friday it was “aware of an incident affecting MANTRA Chain” and had halted the network as a precaution while it investigated. “We don’t have a root cause or timeline to share yet,” the project said, adding that all endpoints and transactions were frozen.
The halt prevents assets from moving on MANTRA Chain and has prompted affected exchanges to pause deposits and withdrawals, with no timeline given for either service to resume.
AI expansion costs Bitcoin miners billions as returns lag
Bitcoin miners are accelerating their push into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, spending more than $5 billion in the first half of 2026 while generating only $341.2 million from those businesses.
The figures, reported by BlocksBridge Consulting, show nine comparable public miners spending roughly $15 on capital assets for every $1 of AI and HPC revenue. Across a broader group of 15 Bitcoin miners and AI data-center companies, capital expenditure reached $30.7 billion in their latest reporting periods, already surpassing total 2025 spending by 42.6%.
Revenue is beginning to rise, however. The nine miners produced $205.8 million from AI and HPC operations in the second quarter, a 52% increase from the previous quarter. Core Scientific, TeraWulf and Bitdeer were among those reporting growth.
According to BlocksBridge, the shift remains expensive because converting mining infrastructure into AI-ready facilities requires major investment in substations, buildings, cooling, networking and, in some cases, GPUs. Still, miners see AI as a diversification opportunity as traditional Bitcoin mining faces pressure.
Cybersecurity firm unveils crypto phishing campaign targeting 885,000 phone numbers
Cybersecurity firm Rapid7 unveiled a new cryptocurrency phishing campaign known as Operation Asterix, targeting roughly 885,000 phone numbers from several countries to steal cryptocurrency investors’ assets.
The phishing campaign led to 5,576 accounts matched to users on crypto exchange Binance, which were queued for attack, while the recovered logs also showed fake emails impersonating Crypto.com, according to a Monday report by Rapid7.
Of the 885,000 phone numbers, the largest file included 316,002 German mobile numbers, with additional directories covering Hong Kong, Bulgaria, the UK, the US, Canadian fintech companies and additional Ledger-related lists.
Phishing attacks and social engineering scams drove the majority of the crypto industry’s losses in the first quarter of the year, accounting for $306 million out of the total $482 million lost, according to blockchain security company Hacken.
As part of the Asterix phishing campaign detailed by Rapid7 analysts Anna Sirokova and Jan Recinsky, attackers drove victims to fake apps impersonating Ledger, Trezor, and Exodus, seeking to steal their seed phrases. Attackers reached out to victims through fake support emails and phone inquiries.
