Key Takeaways
- Avraham Eisenberg was arrested in Puerto Rico yesterday.
- He’s accused of commodities fraud and market manipulation.
- Eisenberg and his staff have been behind the $100 million Mango Markets exploit.
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Avi Eisenberg might have been too intelligent for his personal good when he publicly revealed he was answerable for the Mango Markets exploit in October. It seems the FBI was listening.
“A Extremely Worthwhile Buying and selling Technique”
The Division of Justice has moved in opposition to one other infamous crypto determine.
Avraham Eisenberg was reportedly apprehended by legislation enforcement yesterday in Puerto Rico for his function within the Mango Markets exploit that made him well-known on Crypto Twitter in October. The affidavit signifies that Eisenberg is going through one rely of commodities fraud and one rely of commodities manipulation.
Mango Markets is a decentralized perpetual alternate on Solana. On October 11, Eisenberg and his buying and selling companions took out a big place in Mango’s perpetual futures contracts, thereby artificially inflating the worth of the illiquid MNGO token from $0.3 to $0.91. They then used their vital unrealised income as collateral to borrow the protocol’s property, and drained over $100 million from its treasury.
The exploiters subsequently submitted a proposal within the Mango governance discussion board to offer again the vast majority of the funds (and due to this fact make Mango depositors entire) in alternate for $47 million and the promise of dropping any legal investigation. Shortly after the proposal handed, Eisenberg introduced on Twitter that he had been answerable for the exploit, famously declaring that he had “operated a extremely worthwhile buying and selling technique” the earlier week.
Eisenberg’s open and brazen angle might not have performed him any favors. The affidavit in opposition to him particularly mentions Eisenberg’s “extremely worthwhile buying and selling technique” tweet, together with a number of others that present that Eisenberg was conscious of legal guidelines prohibiting market manipulation.
Thus far, the case in opposition to Eisenberg solely considerations the Mango Markets exploit; nonetheless, the dealer can also be suspected by the crypto group of having run related schemes on Curve, Fortress DAO, and Solend. Additional indictments could also be on the best way.
Disclaimer: On the time of writing, the writer of this piece owned BTC, ETH, and a number of other different crypto property.