According to court documents, Avraham Eisenberg, the cryptocurrency investor whose “very profitable trading approach” emptied the DeFi trading platform Mango Markets of cryptocurrency worth $110 million, was detained on Monday in Puerto Rico.
The self-described game theorist may be the first American to be charged with manipulating a decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform after he revealed his involvement in depleting Mango Markets’ bank account shortly after the incident in mid-October.
According to the court document that was released on Tuesday, Eisenberg is accused of engaging in commodities fraud and manipulation. Depending on the charges he gets convicted for, there may be fines or jail terms involved as the punishment.
Eisenberg is charged with “willfully and knowingly” manipulating the sale of a commodity, specifically futures contracts on Mango Markets, according to a deposition signed by FBI Special Agent Brandon Racz.
The filing further reads; “Eisenberg engaged in a scheme involving the intentional and artificial manipulation of the price of perpetual futures contracts on a cryptocurrency exchange called Mango Markets, and other manipulative and deceptive devices and contrivances.”
According to the second filing submitted by the Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Burnett, Eisenberg was detained on Monday evening in Puerto Rico.
The unsealed complaint claims that Eisenberg manipulated the price of perpetual contracts, a sort of futures contract that is common in cryptocurrency markets, for the native token MNGO of Mango Markets. He increased the price of MNGO perpetual contracts by 1,300% in less than an hour by selling vast quantities of contracts to himself.
With his position now greatly in profit, Eisenberg borrowed against the value of his holdings and then proceeded to withdraw virtually all of the bitcoin deposits on the Mango Markets platform. The complaint states that he earned about $110 million from this.
This court filing argued that this act made the platform insolvent, quoting a thread from Eisenberg’s Twitter account.
Following the trade, Eisenberg and Mango Markets reached an agreement whereby Eisenberg would give $67 million back to the DAO that controls it. After Eisenberg’s attack, Mango DAO intended to restore those cash to the users who were affected.
Following the breaking of Eisenberg’s arrest, memes celebrating his arrest quickly rocked the Mango Markets Discord community.
Read also;
DeGods & y00ts to leave Solana for Ethereum & Polygon in 2023
CBDC: China rolls out a new plan to drive mass adoption
