A crypto trader has stepped into the spotlight in an effort to clear the air on how Mango Markets, a Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform, recently lost $100 million.
Avraham Eisenberg, who runs a trading firm and describes himself as a “digital art dealer,” went public on Saturday as the brains behind the “legal” exploit of Mango.
Eisenberg says he never viewed the event as a hack, but as a trading strategy that outsmarted a vulnerable protocol. The crypto trader puts the blame on Mango’s developers for failing to anticipate last week’s events.
“I was involved with a team that operated a highly profitable trading strategy last week.
I believe all of our actions were legal open market actions, using the protocol as designed, even if the development team did not fully anticipate all the consequences of setting parameters the way they are.
Unfortunately, the exchange this took place on, Mango Markets, became insolvent as a result, with the insurance fund being insufficient to cover all liquidations. This led to other users being unable to access their funds.
To remedy the situation, I helped negotiate a settlement agreement with the insurance fund with the goal of making all users whole as soon as possible as well as recapitalizing the exchange.”
Shortly before Eisenberg came forward, Mango Markets offered a deal with him to return slightly less than half of the exploited funds as a whitehat bounty.
Mango asked for roughly $47 million in crypto to be returned to the platform, including Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), Serum (SRM), Ethereum (ETH), FTX Token (FTT), Binance Coin (BNB), Mango (MNGO), Marinade Staked Solana (mSOL), and USD Coin (USDC).
At time of writing, it’s not clear whether or not Eisenberg has returned the funds. It is also unclear whether any laws were broken by Eisenberg during the exploit.
As part of the proposal, Mango Markets has agreed not to pursue any criminal investigation.
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