Mango Markets

On October 11, 2022, Mango Markets, a Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform, was exploited for $116 million through an oracle price manipulation attack, as reported by Blockworks and CoinDesk. Detected at 22:00 UTC, the attacker, later identified as Avraham Eisenberg, used two accounts funded with $5 million USDC each to manipulate the thinly traded MNGO token’s price, pumping it from $0.02 to $0.91 across exchanges like FTX and Ascendex, per OtterSec. By shorting 483 million MNGO perpetual futures with one account and buying them with another, Eisenberg inflated his collateral value, borrowing $116 million in assets, including $53.7 million USDC, $3.2 million USDT, SOL, and BTC, draining Mango’s liquidity, per Twitter (@mangomarkets). Mango, with $30 million daily volume per CoinGecko, froze deposits and sought third-party fund freezes, but $67 million was returned after a DAO vote approved Eisenberg’s proposal to keep $47 million as a “bounty” and waive criminal probes, per Mango’s governance forum. The vote, heavily influenced by one wallet, passed with 99.9% approval, per Blockworks. Eisenberg’s public claim on Twitter (@avi_eisen) of a “profitable trading strategy” led to his 2023 arrest by the DOJ, with SEC and CFTC charges, per Ackee Blockchain. One of 41 oracle manipulation attacks in 2022 costing $403.2 million, per Chainalysis, the incident, following BNB Chain’s $100 million hack, fueled calls for robust oracle feeds, low-liquidity token restrictions, and real-time trade surveillance to secure DeFi protocols.