By
Steve Muchoki
April 19th, 2024
Mango Markets saw $114 million worth of crypto stolen by a group of exploiters by manipulating the price of the DEX’s native token MNGO.
Mango Markets, the Solana-based decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) that fell victim of hackers earlier this month, has announced that it will soon start returning the funds stolen during the $114 million exploit.
The crypto exchange had previously stated that its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), entities that are owned and governed by their members without any central leadership, would vote on how to return the funds to users.
“The program for depositors to recover funds is in audit and should be ready to go by tomorrow morning. Much thanks to all the Mango contributors working tirelessly to make this happen,” Daffy Durairaj, the co-founder of Mango Labs, said in a tweet.
Durairaj also thanked all the Mango contributors that worked hard to make the latest development a possibility.
Mango Markets saw $114 million worth of crypto stolen by a group of exploiters by manipulating the price of the DEX’s native token MNGO.
Since the DEX’s native token relies on smart contracts to match trades between users, the hackers exploited a loophole in it and took advantage of the fact that no entity would step in and prevent the attack.
Avraham Eisenberg, one of the alleged exploiters, released a statement last week, confirming his involvement in the recent attack on Mango Markets.
Eisenberg described himself as a digital art dealer in his statement, and added that he runs a team that engages in a ‘highly profitable trading strategy’.
He also deemed their actions as legitimate free market activities since they utilized the site in accordance with its intended function. However, he felt that Mango Markets’ creators overestimated the effects of the platform parameters they chose.
Eisenberg didn’t reveal the number of people on his team but did say that the group had returned $67 million to the Solana-based exchange.
Eisenberg further noted that Mango Markets became bankrupt as a result of the abuse of the platform. He highlighted the insurance fund’s inadequacy to handle all forum liquidations, which saw the DEX lose more than $100 million in money from its users.
Built on the Solana blockchain, Mango Markets uses Serum DEX for spot margin trading and its own order book for permanent futures trading. Through the Mango DAO, MNGO token holders control Mango Markets.
Users can trade Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Serum (SRM), and Mango (MNGO) with up to 5x margin.