The Mango Markets hacker has spoken out on Twitter, claiming that the actions he took were entirely legal and only a result of the opportunities offered by the protocol. However, he agreed to return $67 million to the platform as the latter had requested, leaving him with a net profit of $37 million.
Mango Markets hacker returns $67 million
The hacker behind the $114 million price manipulation of the Mango Markets platform has returned $67 million to the project teams.
The hacker responded positively to a request from the Mango Markets decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) via its governance protocol yesterday afternoon to drop all legal proceedings against the individual if he agreed to return $67 million and keep the rest of the loot, or $47 million.
It should be noted that the hacker will have earned “only” $37 million in this story, as he had to personally invest $10 million to carry out the initial price manipulation.
Statement on recent events:
I was involved with a team that operated a highly profitable trading strategy last week.
– Avraham Eisenberg (@avi_eisen) October 15, 2022
In this thread, written on 15 October at around 7pm, Avraham Eisenberg explains that he was “involved in a team that operated a very profitable trading strategy” and that all the actions taken were the result of using a free market and using a protocol “as it was designed”.
According to him, it was the insolvency of the protocol that motivated his team to return the funds as requested by Mango Markets, as this left many individuals aggrieved, as they found themselves unable to withdraw their cryptocurrencies, as all assets were siphoned off:
” Other users were therefore unable to access their funds. To remedy the situation, I helped negotiate a settlement agreement with the insurance fund to compensate all users as quickly as possible and recapitalise the platform. […] Thanks to this agreement, once the Mango team has completed processing, all users will be able to access their deposits in full, without loss of funds. “
The Mango community can expect a refund
About an hour and a half after the hacker revealed his identity, Mango Markets issued a statement via Twitter confirming that the $67 million had been returned.
$67M in various crypto assets have been returned to the DAO. Let’s meet up on Monday 3 PM UTC on the Mango discord to discuss, how we can sort out this mess.
– Mango (@mangomarkets) October 15, 2022
The project team informed its community that several developers were already working on a refund schedule for those affected by the market manipulation.
Mango Markets also said that no date could be given for the return of the funds, as the implementation of these solutions should be structured around security and not speed. However, the community is expected to be involved in these decisions as early as next week as several governance proposals will be submitted to the DAO to determine how and how many assets would be returned.
