Mango Market Hacker Asks Court to Keep the Stolen Funds
Avraham Eisenberg's legal team has challenged Mango Labs' lawsuit seeking the recovery of the remaining funds, refuting allegations of "duress."
Mango Labs is the development team behind Mango Markets, a trading platform based on Solana.
In October of last year, Eisenberg, a so-called “applied game theorist,” used the platform to execute trades on one account that inflated the token value of another account, allowing him to borrow around $110 million in cryptocurrencies with the second account’s value as collateral.
This strategy resulted in the insolvency of Mango Markets, wiping out the platform.
After reaching an agreement with Mango DAO, the decentralized community of voting token holders, Eisenberg returned $67 million and received a $47 million bug bounty.
However, in January, Mango Labs sued to reclaim the funds, citing “duress.” Eisenberg’s legal team argues that Mango Labs’ claims are baseless and were made three months after the settlement agreement.
They suggest that Mango Labs witnessed third parties bringing claims against Eisenberg and crafted a scheme to get in on the action.
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The Department of Justice arrested Eisenberg in December on charges of market manipulation offenses, but he has pleaded not guilty.
The CFTC’s civil suit charged the Mango Markets attacker “with a fraudulent and manipulative scheme to unlawfully obtain over $110 million in digital assets.” In contrast, the SEC has charged him with violating manipulation and anti-fraud provisions in the Commission’s 1934 securities act.
In January, the CFTC and SEC charged Eisenberg with fraudulently and manipulatively obtaining over $110 million in digital assets.