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 Justice Department said Avraham Eisenberg was convicted of commodity fraud, commodity market manipulation and wire fraud in connection with the trading scheme that left Mango Markets insolvent and users without access to their funds.
On October 11, 2022, Mango Markets alleged that an attacker artificially inflated the price of Mango (MNGO) and then borrowed large amounts of crypto assets from the platform using the unrealized profits from his long position in the utility token as collateral .
A week later, Eisenberg, who describes himself as a “digital art dealer,” became publicly known as the mastermind behind the exploit. Still, the 28-year-old said he considered the scheme a legal trading strategy and blamed the protocol’s developers for not anticipating the event.
Eisenberg was arrested in Puerto Rico on December 26, 2022 after being charged for his actions. He was convicted on April 18 after a 10-day jury trial.
Says Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri:
“Manipulative trading puts our financial markets and investors at risk. This prosecution – the first involving the manipulation of cryptocurrency through open market transactions – demonstrates the Criminal Division’s commitment to protecting America’s financial markets and holding offenders accountable, regardless of the mechanism they use to prevent manipulation and fraud. commit.”
The verdict is set for July 29.
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