Mango Markets, a Solana-based DEX, is shutting down after regulatory probes by the SEC and CFTC following a $110 million exploit in 2022.
The DAO agreed to fines, token destruction, and settlements, while the exploiter, Avraham Eisenberg, faces sentencing in 2025.
A decentralized exchange (DEX) called Mango Markets, which was built on Solana, has shut down after facing major legal problems. The choice was made public on Saturday, along with new ideas for making it too expensive to borrow money on the platform.
After crypto broker Avraham Eisenberg stole $110 million worth of digital assets from Mango Markets in 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) started to look into the company.
The SEC said that Mango’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) didn’t register properly, which meant that investors weren’t getting important benefits. Mango DAO raised more than $70 million by selling its MNGO tokens without being registered with the government.
The regulator also said that Blockworks Foundation and Mango Labs LLC, two linked companies, worked as unregistered brokers.
The SEC fined Mango DAO, Blockworks Foundation, and Mango Labs $700,000 in September, but they didn’t say they were guilty or not. In addition, they decided to destroy their MNGO tokens and ask that they be taken off of trading platforms. The DAO wanted to settle with the CFTC for an extra $500,000.
Eisenberg, on the other hand, was found guilty of counterfeit goods, market manipulation, and wire theft in April 2024. The judge has put off his sentence until April 2025.
