Mango (MNGO)

Only going Mango makes sense if you care about crosw margin and risk controls

Drift feels smolther right now, but Mango is battle tested

Solana perps meta is not settled

> don’t be Avraham Eisenberg

> self-described “applied game theorist”
> believed “if the code allows it, it’s fair”

> built deep intuition for DeFi market structure
> found an edge in Mango Markets’ risk assumptions
> October 11, 2022: executed a manipulation-based attack prosecutors say caused his position value to jump ~1,300% in ~20 minutes
> extracted roughly $110M from the protocol and its users

> the impact wasn’t just financial
> Mango never recovered trust or operations the same way
> governance fractured, liquidity thinned, and the protocol became defined by the exploit

> went public with the “code is law” defense
> claimed it was just trading, transparent, and within the rules

> community fallout followed immediately
> returned ~ $67M
> governance allowed him to keep ~ $47M after a vote
> the DAO turned into part courtroom, part battlefield

> January 2023: regulators step in
> civil and criminal charges follow

> December 2022: arrested in Puerto Rico and held as a flight risk

> April 2024: convicted by a jury on fraud and market-manipulation charges
> May 2025: those Mango-related convictions are vacated on legal grounds

> separate from all crypto headlines: sentenced to 52 months in federal prison for possession of child sexual abuse material

> lesson

> “code is law” is not a legal defense
> exploiting weak assumptions is still treated as fraud when it involves deception and harm
> dressing wrongdoing up in smart language doesn’t change how courts read it

disclaimer: this is a factual timeline based on public reporting and court records.

staysafe.

made low 4 figs from this dogshit