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Crypto Trader Behind $110,000,000 Mango Markets Exploit Convicted on Fraud Charges

Crypto Trader Behind 0,000,000 Mango Markets Exploit Convicted on Fraud Charges

A jury has unanimously found the trader behind the $110 million exploit of Solana (SOL)-based decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform Mango Markets guilty in the first-ever cryptocurrency market manipulation case in the US. In a statement, the Department of Justice says that Avraham Eisenberg was convicted of commodities fraud, commodities market manipulation and wire fraud […]

The post Crypto Trader Behind $110,000,000 Mango Markets Exploit Convicted on Fraud Charges appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

Nigeria Mulls Over Banning P2P Crypto Transactions; Labels Crypto Trading as National Security Concern

Fraud trial of Mango Markets exploiter behind alleged $116M theft pushed to April

Attorneys representing the alleged fraudster, Avraham Eisenberg, convinced the judge that more time was needed to sift through discovery materials submitted by U.S. prosecutors.

Lawyers representing the $116 million Mango Markets exploiter have convinced a judge to postpone the fraud trial until April 8, 2023.

Avraham Eisenberg’s fraud trial was set to commence on Dec. 4 but several circumstances impacted his trial preparations, according to his lawyers, who filed a successful motion for a continuance to District Court Judge Arun Subramanian on Nov. 2.

“As discussed in today’s conference, the motion for continuance is GRANTED. Trial in this case will begin on April 8, 2024,” Subramanian stated in a Nov. 3 court filing.

U.S. prosecutors contested the motion for continuance but were unsuccessful. Subramanian also ordered United States prosecutors and Eisenberg's lawyers to submit a revised schedule for pretrial motions and submissions by Nov. 7.

Despite confessing his involvement in the Mango Markets exploit, Eisenberg plead not guilty to three criminal counts for commodities fraud, commodity manipulation and wire fraud in June.

Judge Arun Subramanian granted Eisenberg’s motion for continuance (in blue writing) on Nov. 3. Source: Courtlistener

In the motion, Eisenberg’s attorneys said they needed more time to sift through discovery materials submitted by U.S. prosecutors.

“The government has produced voluminous discovery in this case on a rolling basis [...] which the defense is still analyzing and conferring with the client about.”

The lawyers added that they lost time to prepare with Eisenberg when he was “unexpectedly” transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn on Oct. 26.

Eisenberg wasn’t permitted to transfer the discovery materials, which he annotated along with other legal paperwork relevant to the trial.

“The move to the MDC has already, and will continue to, severely inhibit defense counsel’s access to Mr. Eisenberg,” the lawyers added.

MCD is the prison which former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried returned to after he was convicted on all seven fraud-related charges on Nov. 2.

Related: How low liquidity led to Mango Markets losing over $116 million

The Securities and Exchange Commission also charged Eisenberg on Jan. 20, alleging that he manipulated the Mango Markets governance token, MNGO, by taking out “massive loans” against its inflated collateral and draining Mango’s treasury of around $116 million.

It followed Eisenberg’s arrest in Puerto Rico about three weeks earlier on Dec. 27.

Eisenberg publicly confessed to the exploit on Oct. 15, 2022, arguing that his actions were completely legal. He initially sent back $67 million to Mango Markets' decentralized autonomous organization as part of a bounty deal. However the team behind Mango Markets later sued Eisenberg for $47 million in damages plus interest.

Magazine: Should crypto projects ever negotiate with hackers? Probably

Nigeria Mulls Over Banning P2P Crypto Transactions; Labels Crypto Trading as National Security Concern

Regulatory action against Mango Markets exploiter is a win for DeFi — Moody’s

The SEC and CFTC taking action against the alleged fraudster shows that decentralized finance is becoming a “safer and more welcoming environment,” according to credit rating firm Moody’s.

Recent charges brought against Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg will have a positive impact on the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, according to credit rating firm Moody’s. 

In a Jan. 31 note from Moody’s Investor Service, assistant vice president of decentralized finance Cristiano Ventricelli stated that enforcement actions brought by the two leading U.S. market regulators in January mean that DeFi is moving toward a “safer and more welcoming environment.”

“The fact that both the SEC and CFTC took action against market manipulation by an alleged rogue trader is a credit positive for the industry as a whole.

Ventricelli stated that these actions could “improve oversight of the DeFi industry” which has for the most part been a difficult area to regulate due to the lack of clarity regarding jurisdiction over open-source protocols.

On Jan. 20, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed charges against the alleged market manipulator, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed charges against Eisenberg on Jan. 9.

Ventricelli made a similar comment in an article tweeted out by Moody’s on Jan. 26 but he went into more detail in the Jan. 31 note.

The report suggested that DeFi is “no longer a no man’s land,” referring to a June speech by European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde to the European Parliament, where she argued that Europe’s crypto legislation, Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA), should be expanded to include a framework for decentralized finance.

Ventricelli suggested that this safer environment could lead to wider adoption among institutional investors “such as banks,” as well as retail investors.

Related: DeFi sees exploits and exit scam drama in the last week of 2022: Finance Redefined

CFTC’s filing alleged that Eisenberg “engaged in a manipulative and deceptive scheme to artificially inflate the price of swaps offered by Mango Markets.”

The SEC filing alleged that Eisenberg’s actions “left the platform at a deficit” when the security price returned to its pre-manipulation level.

Mango Labs, the company behind Mango Markets, filed its own lawsuit against Eisenberg on Jan. 25, demanding $47 million in damages plus interest over his alleged October exploit.

Nigeria Mulls Over Banning P2P Crypto Transactions; Labels Crypto Trading as National Security Concern

10 crypto tweets that aged like milk: 2022 edition

Sam Bankman-Fried, Do Kwon and Alex Mashinsky might look back on this year and wish they had hired a social media adviser or logged off Twitter.

To put it lightly, it has been a wild year for the crypto sector.

In the span of less than 12 months, the third-most valuable stablecoin imploded, leading to a domino effect that saw crypto lender Celsius go bankrupt, Three Arrows Capital’s founders go runabout and one of crypto’s most “altruistic” executives flown home in cuffs.

In this article, Cointelegraph has selected 10 crypto-related tweets that have aged like spoilt milk.

Do Kwon — “Steady lads”

On May 10, just as the algo-stablecoin formerly known as TerraUSD started to fall below its dollar peg, the Terraform Labs founder attempted to allay fears of a further depeg, tweeting: “Deploying more capital - steady lads.”

Well, we all know what happened after. The collapse of the Terra ecosystem in May 2022 saw more than $40 billion wiped from the market in that month alone.

Since then, Do Kwon and the remaining Terra community have tried to revive the project with a newer stablecoin coming into the works. TerraUSD has since been rebranded to TerraClassicUSD (USTC) and is worth $0.02 at the time of writing.

Do Kwon — “Your size is not size”

Next on the list is Kwon’s famous response to crypto trader Algod, who outlined on March 9 that if LUNA “breaks new ATH’s I will short it with size. It’s a big ass ponzi, pretty sure VC’s will also hedge their investments on perps.”

Kwon then hit back by essentially calling Algod poor, stating, “Yeah but your size is not size” before adding, “$10 short incoming, everyone take cover.”

This of course was memed back to Kwon on many occasions during and after he went into damage control mode as TerraUSD spiraled out of control.

SBF — “Sell me all you want. Then go fuck off.”

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has a near-endless amount of statements that likely look terrible in current circumstances. Not only has he lied about “assets are fine” but shortly before his company filed for bankruptcy, the FTX founder also left us with the $3 Solana (SOL) meme.

In a debate on Twitter from January, crypto trader CoinMamba got under SBF’s skin in January 2021, suggesting that SOL was a great shorting opportunity over the price of $3.

After a back in forth in which the two were trying to iron out a bet on the future price, SBF finally had enough of CoinMamba’s SOL taunting and said:

“I’ll buy as much SOL as you have, right now, at $3. Sell me all you want. Then go fuck off.”

The comment became legendary in the crypto community, particularly after the price of SOL went to an all-time high of $259.96 on Nov. 6, 2021.

However, CoinMamba appears to have had the last laugh, as Bankman-Fried’s firm catastrophically collapsed a year later.

Replying to the nearly two-year-old thread, CoinMamba gave Bankman-Fried a taste of his own medicine. “I’ll buy everything you have, right now, at $3. Sell me all you want. Then go fuck off.”

Alex Mashinsky — “All funds are safe.”

Amid the LUNA fiasco in May, rumors started to float that Celsius was having liquidity issues and could be heading for serious trouble, while others had claimed the firm had already been “completely wiped out.”

In a bid to quickly assure Celsius customers, Mashinsky responded to the rumors by stating in a May 12 tweet: “Notwithstanding the extreme market volatility, Celsius has not experienced any significant losses,” adding:

“All funds are safe.”

These four words went on to become a harbinger of doom for the industry.

A month later, on June 12, the firm paused all withdrawals. On July 13, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Users are still battling to get even a portion of their funds back as we speak.

Celsius — “If you don’t have free and unlimited access to your own funds, are they really *your* funds?”

Accompanying Mashinsky is a classic from Celsius Network, in which the firm was touting the whole “unbank yourself” catchphrase. The crypto lender often suggested it was more trustworthy than the banking system.

In a Nov. 14 tweet from 2019, Celsius Network tweeted, “If you don’t have free and unlimited access to your own funds, are they really *your* funds?” before adding:

“#UnbankYourself with Celsius and join the next generation of financial services — no fees, no penalties, no lockups, just profit.”

That statement hasn’t fared too well in 2022.

Amid its Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, users have had zero access to their locked-up funds, while profits are in doubt, too, considering they might not get all the funds back.

Voyager — “We have the experience to [...] weather any bear market.”

Following a similar line to Celsius and Mashinky, fellow bankrupted crypto lender Voyager published a lengthy Twitter thread in June, which now looks a bit out of place as 2022 comes to a close.

In an attempt to assure customers that the company was safe during the bear market following the collapse of the Terra ecosystem, Voyager assured customers it carefully manages “risk” and its mission is to “make crypto as simple as safe as possible.”

“Our straightforward, low-risk approach to asset management is the result of our decades of experience leading companies through market cycles. We have the experience to back our decisions and weather any bear market.”

Over the next couple of weeks, it was widely reported that the company was facing liquidity issues, and by July 5, Voyager had filed for bankruptcy.

TechCrunch — “The collapse of ETH is inevitable”

Next in line is a tweet dating back to 2018 from fintech news outlet TechCrunch that reads: “The collapse of ETH is inevitable.”

The tweet is accompanied by an extremely bearish article in which the author, Jeremy Rubin, predicts that “ETH — the asset, not the Ethereum Network itself — will go to zero.”

Rubin, who disclosed at the end of the article that he was a Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC) hodler at the time, bizarrely suggests that if the Ethereum network completes everything on its roadmap, no one will have any use for the asset.

At the time of writing, however, Ether (ETH) sits at $1,196 and presents a host of reasons for people to want to hold it: staking rewards, borrowing, lending and deflationary tokenomics.

Additionally, it also serves utility purposes, such as pushing through transactions on the largest smart contract network on the market.

Click “Collect” below the illustration at the top of the page or follow this link.

Avraham Eisenberg — “What are you gonna do, arrest me?”

Avraham Eisenberg, the crypto trader behind the $110-million exploit of decentralized exchange Mango Markets, makes the list due to a tweet from October that looks terrible in current circumstances.

The tweet itself revolves around a rather harmless back-and-forth regarding Eisenberg’s incorrect use of the @inversebrah tag, with Sheik Swampert noting, “You don’t call inversebrah on yourself dude.”

In response, Eisenberg said, “What are you gonna do, arrest me?”

As of this week, Eisenberg has actually been arrested and is facing market manipulation charges over the Mango Markets exploit, which he had consistently maintained was “a highly profitable trading strategy” facilitated via “legal open market actions.”

As such, this tweet has fast become a popular meme that will most likely live on for a long time in Crypto Twitter folklore.

Fortune — SBF, the “next Warren Buffet”

American business magazine Fortune has also got itself on this list for speaking in glowing terms of SBF back in August.

In a Twitter thread, the publication labeled him the “de facto leader of the crypto community” before suggesting that he was the “next Warren Buffet, Crypto’s white knight” and “Prince of risk.”

Kevin O’Leary — “I’m going to use FTX to increase my allocation”

Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, also known as Mr. Wonderful, makes the list for his backing of FTX and its former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried.

O’Leary’s now-deleted tweet came on Aug. 10, 2021, after he signed a deal to become an FTX spokesperson. In the tweet, he emphasized:

“Finally solved my compliance problems with #cryptocurrencies I’m going to use FTX to increase my allocation and use the platform to manage my portfolios.”

Unfortunately for O’Leary, FTX was anything but compliant, and the millionaire said he has likely lost the entire $15 million he was paid to be FTX’s spokesperson after taxes, agent fees and all the crypto he kept on the exchange was lost after the firm’s bankruptcy.

Nigeria Mulls Over Banning P2P Crypto Transactions; Labels Crypto Trading as National Security Concern

Crypto Trader Involved in $110,000,000 Exploit Arrested for Alleged Commodities Fraud and Manipulation

Crypto Trader Involved in 0,000,000 Exploit Arrested for Alleged Commodities Fraud and Manipulation

The crypto trader behind the $110 million exploit of the Solana (SOL)-based decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform Mango Markets is now under the custody of US authorities. A court document submitted by U.S. Attorney Damian Williams to Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker of the Southern District of New York says that Avraham Eisenberg was arrested in […]

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Nigeria Mulls Over Banning P2P Crypto Transactions; Labels Crypto Trading as National Security Concern

Maybe it WAS illegal: Mango Markets exploiter arrested on fraud charges

The Mango Markets exploiter previously called his attack on the crypto exchange “legal open market actions.”

The crypto trader behind the $110 million exploit of decentralized exchange Mango Markets has been arrested in Puerto Rico — and charged with market manipulation and fraud.

According to a previously sealed complaint filed with the Southern District of New York made public on Dec. 27, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) pinned Avraham Eisenberg with one count of “commodities fraud” and one count of “commodities manipulation” in relation to his exploit of Mango Markets.

Eisenberg’s Oct. 11 exploit of Mango Markets worked by manipulating the value of the platform’s native token MNGO, artificially inflating its price relative to USD Coin (USDC).

Eisenberg and his team then took out “massive loans” against its inflated collateral, which drained Mango’s treasury of around $110 million worth of various cryptocurrencies.

A day later on Oct. 12, Mango entered into negotiations with Eisenberg for the return of the funds.

On Oct. 15, Eisenberg publicly fessed up to exploiting the crypto exchange, stating at the time he was involved in a team that “operated a highly profitable trading strategy” and said that he believed all his actions were “legal open market actions.”

The FBI in its recent complaint stated the actions by Eisenberg constitute both fraud and market manipulation, as he “willfully and knowingly” engaged in a scheme involving the “intentional and artificial manipulation” of the price of perpetual futures on Mango Markets.

This ultimately allowed him to drain $110 million worth of cryptocurrencies — most of which came from the deposits of other Mango Markets investors.

“Due to [Eisenberg’s] withdrawals, other investors with deposits on Mango Markets lost much, or all, of those deposits,” explained FBI special agent Brandon Racz in the Dec. 23 complaint.

Racz said Eisenberg may have known his actions were illegal as well, as the day after the Mango Markets exploit, Eisenberg flew from the United States to Israel.

“Based on the timing of the flight, the travel appears to have been an effort to avoid apprehension by law enforcement in the immediate aftermath of the Market Manipulation Scheme,” he said.

Eisenberg was arrested on Dec. 26 in Puerto Rico, according to a filing from the United States Attorney Southern District of New York.

Related: How low liquidity led to Mango Markets losing over $116 million

In November, Eisenberg tried his luck again, this time on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocol Aave, taking out a loan of 40 million CRV tokens from Aave and betting on a drop in price through a series of sophisticated short sales.

However, the plan ultimately didn’t succeed as the price actually rose during the attack, resulting in losses due to the significant short position.

Nigeria Mulls Over Banning P2P Crypto Transactions; Labels Crypto Trading as National Security Concern

Mango Markets exploiter said actions were ‘legal,’ but was it?

A crypto lawyer believes the Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg could still face consequences despite users supposedly agreeing not to pursue legal action.

The $117 million Mango Markets exploiter has defended that their actions were ‘legal,’ but a lawyer suggests that they could still face consequences.

Self-described digital art dealer Avraham Eisenberg, outed himself as the exploiter in a series of tweets on Oct. 15 claiming he and a team undertook a “highly profitable trading strategy” and that it was “legal open market actions, using the protocol as designed.”

The Oct. 11 exploit worked through Eisenberg and his team manipulating the value of their posted collateral — the platforms’ native token MNGO — to higher prices, then taking out significant loans against their inflated collateral which drained Mango’s treasury.

Michael Bacina, partner at Australian law firm PiperAlderman told Cointelegraph “if this had occurred in a regulated financial market it would be likely seen as market manipulation.”

“Price manipulation is a cousin of misrepresentation, and in many jurisdictions engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct is unlawful and grounds for legal claims.”

Eisenberg has committed to “making all users whole” and negotiations between him and the Mango Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) have resulted in the DAO voting that Eisenberg be allowed to keep $47 million as a “bug bounty," while the rest will be sent back to the treasury.

A stipulation as part of the proposal states MNGO token holders “will not pursue any criminal investigations or freezing of funds” as Eisenburg has sent back the agreed portion of the exploited cryptocurrency.

However, Bacina said it’s “unlikely” that Eisenburg would be released from all liability, even from those that voted for the proposal, given the wording of the proposal are “weak," commenting: 

“The wording of the proposal is weak and the circumstances are such that the offer of a release are questionable.”

That being said, Bacina said there might be a “limited commercial incentive” to sue Eisenburg as any legal claims would be reduced by the amount a member received due to the proposal.

“Assuming claims survive the proposal, any claims would still need to be reduced by any amounts which had been received by a member as a result of the proposal, which may mean many members have limited commercial incentive to sue Mr Eisenberg,” he explained. 

Related Wintermute repays $92M TrueFi loan on time despite suffering $160M hack

Part of the $67 million worth of crypto returned to the platform will now be used to reimburse affected users under the reimbursement plan approved by the DAO.

Eisenberg maintains the exploited crypto he returned is similar to automatic deleveraging on cryptocurrency exchanges where a portion of profits from profitable traders is recovered to cover losses by the exchange.

Cointelegraph contacted Eisenberg for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Nigeria Mulls Over Banning P2P Crypto Transactions; Labels Crypto Trading as National Security Concern