1 year ago
A fewer months tin consciousness similar a beingness successful crypto. However, it astir apt hasn’t felt similar agelong capable for Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg, who was taken into custody successful Puerto Rico this week. Eisenberg gained notoriety connected crypto Twitter aft describing his nine-figure exploit of the Solana-based protocol arsenic “a highly profitable trading strategy.” On Twitter and crossed different outlets, Eisenberg was insistent that his exploit was simply taking vantage of the protocol’s code, and that his actions weren’t amerciable oregon adjacent immoral.
However, U.S. national prosectors look to disagree.
An Exploiter’s Endeavor
In October, Eisenberg exploited Solana-based Mango Markets and made headlines not conscionable for the exploit – which was fundamentally a ‘looping’ exploit, manipulating the terms of the MNGO token – but besides for the outlandishly-sized ‘bug bounty’ that Eisenberg managed to locomotion distant with. B
ug bounties are commonplace for exploiters – often ‘white hat’ exploiters who look to instrumentality vantage of codification for the ‘better of society’ – but ne'er person amounted to a payout this large. While Eisenberg attempted to see connection successful a Mango protocol connection that could shield him from “criminal investigations,” that didn’t dilatory the U.S. DoJ and FBI from looking into his activity.
At the clip of our October publishing connected the matter, it was unclear if Mango would beryllium capable to marque a recovery; small did we cognize however overmuch harm the Solana ecosystem would look successful the 60 days pursuing that event. Since the exploiter’s endeavor, Solana’s defi scenery has crumbled, FTX fallout has impacted the concatenation drastically, and it’s erstwhile flagship NFT assemblage is facing aggravated unit with the departure of signature projects DeGods and y00ts.
Mango Madness, Continued
Court documents person been unveiled this week, shedding airy connected Eisenberg’s apprehension successful Puerto Rico. An archetypal filing, dated December 23, 2022 and released this week, national prosecutors outline 2 abstracted charges surrounding Eisenberg’s “scheme involving the intentional and artificial manipulation of the terms of perpetual futures contracts” connected Mango. The 14-page filing details however Eisenberg manipulated MNGO perps, detailing his question betwixt wallets.
The filing closes by mentioning that Eisenberg attempted to fly instrumentality enforcement by swiftly departing the U.S. to Israel, and highlights the content that Eisenberg was good alert of the illegality of his actions, based connected Twitter activity. The papers is rounded retired by a petition from the FBI cause to contented a warrant for Eisenberg’s arrest.
A 2nd filing, dated December 27, confirms his apprehension successful Puerto Rico. Crypto Twitter rejoiced with memes surrounding Eisenberg’s arrest.
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