A New York federal court will begin trial on Avraham Eisenberg’s fraud and manipulation charges Tuesday, which will examine his allegations $116 million exploit from Solana-based DeFi exchange Mango Markets. The trial is expected to last two weeks.
The trial was originally scheduled for December 4, 2023, but it was postponed on request of Eisenberg’s defense team.
While Eisenberg confirmed that he and his team orchestrated the attack on Mango Markets in October 2022, he claims it was simply a “highly profitable business strategy” that legally took advantage of the protocol as it was designed.
THE strategy involved Eisenberg inflating the platform’s native Mango token by manipulating the price oracle and using the inflated tokens as collateral to take out approximately $116 million in crypto loans that left the platform insolvent. Eisenberg then agreed with Mango DAO to return $67 million in funds.
Eisenberg was stopped in December 2022, after being indicted by the Department of Justice, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the United States, wire fraud charges can carry sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
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