Mango Markets Hack 2022 — $117M Exploit Analysis

Attacker manipulated MNGO token price to artificially inflate collateral value and borrow $117M against it from Mango's treasury.

Details

• Date: 2022-10-11
• Amount Lost: $117,000,000
• Chain(s): Solana
• Category: DeFi
• Technique: Oracle Manipulation
• Status: Partially Recovered
• Amount Recovered: $70,000,000

Full Description

Avraham Eisenberg manipulated the price of MNGO by taking large opposing perp positions on Mango itself, inflating the MNGO price 10x. Using the inflated collateral value, he borrowed $117M from Mango's treasury. He then negotiated a governance deal to keep $47M as a 'bug bounty', making him one of the first publicly identified DeFi exploiters.

Laundering Analysis

Eisenberg negotiated openly on-chain via governance to retain $47M. He was arrested by US authorities in December 2022 and charged with commodities fraud. Funds partially returned to Mango. Eisenberg was convicted in April 2024 on multiple fraud counts. Remaining funds frozen by courts.

Sources

• https://rekt.news/mango-markets-rekt/
• https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/new-york-man-charged-market-manipulation

Transaction Hashes

• 5M4ER1oc9Xk8UyV7ZQHBD4PXS63e5T9wdH3xGf8vQhPvFhXyqKt2uUoK1M3VznCgTtEedxo2BqjjPQf3BTPPBR

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