Mango Markets has announced its decision to shut down, advising all users to close their positions as soon as possible. The platform’s services, including Mango v4 and Boost, will begin winding down. Borrowing on the platform will no longer be economically viable in the near future.
Mango Markets started as a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) that focused on providing efficient, low-cost trading services for users. Launched in 2021, it was built on the Solana blockchain, a high-speed platform known for its scalability.
Mango Markets was co-founded by Maximilian Schneider and Daffy Durairaj per Mango’s Crunchbase profile, and they played significant roles in creating the decentralized trading platform, leveraging the Solana blockchain to deliver a fast, low-cost, and efficient trading experience.
Mango Markets offered features like spot and margin trading, with the goal of offering a smoother trading experience compared to other exchanges. It attracted users with its promise of low fees, fast transactions, and access to various crypto assets.
However, Mango Markets faced a major setback in October 2022, when it was exploited, leading to a loss of approximately $116 million in crypto assets. The attacker took advantage of vulnerabilities in its protocol, specifically targeting its oracle system, which determines the price of assets for margin trading. This allowed the attacker to manipulate prices and drain the platform’s funds.
After the hack, Mango Markets attempted to recover, offering a proposal to the hacker to return a portion of the stolen funds in exchange for immunity. While some funds were returned, the damage to the platform’s reputation and user trust was significant.
In response to the financial and operational challenges that followed, Mango Markets decided to shut down its operations. The decision was also influenced by a combination of regulatory pressures, security issues, and the wider difficulties facing decentralized finance (DeFi) projects.
According to Mango Markets, proposals related to this shutdown are currently active and will become actionable on Monday, January 13, at 8 PM UTC. As part of the transition, Mango v4 will change how deposits are managed.
Instead of lending out 50% of deposits, only 0.1% will be available for loans. This will result in significant interest rate increases for assets such as SOL, USDC, USDT, ETH, MSOL, mangoSOL, and INF.
Additionally, collateral requirements for new positions will rise sharply, increasing by 10 times. Users are encouraged to take immediate steps to manage their positions in light of these changes.
