Solana DeFi Platform Mango Markets Settles SEC Charges Over MNGO Token

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Friday that it has charged the teams behind the Solana-based DeFi platform Mango Markets—Mango DAO, Mango Labs, and the Blockworks Foundation—with securities charges following a lengthy investigation.

The charges have already been settled, and the settlement was approved by MNGO token holders via the Mango DAO in August. Collectively, the firms will pay nearly $700,000 worth of civil penalties and have agreed to “destroy their MNGO tokens, to request the removal of MNGO tokens from trading platforms, and to refrain from soliciting any trading platform to allow trading in or offering or selling MNGO.”

Mango DAO and the Blockworks Foundation—the entity behind the token—were charged over the offer and sale of the MNGO tokens, while original platform developer Mango Labs and the Foundation were charged for acting as an unregistered broker.

Mango Markets users holding the MNGO token voted to approve a settlement with the Wall Street regulator back in August for the crypto project, which has been the subject of a high-profile exploit along with multiple regulatory investigations.

Mango Markets is a protocol that allows users to trade tokens without intermediaries. Back in 2022, an attacker targeted the decentralized finance app, pinching $110 million in assets. 

The theft happened when the hacker temporarily drove up the value of Mango Markets’ collateral due to a flaw in its system. The hacker then took out loans from Mango’s treasury and disappeared with the funds. 

Feds charged Avraham Eisenberg with orchestrating the hack and taking the funds; he was convicted of fraud in April. 

His case made headlines as his lawyer had argued that risky DeFi exploits like the one that impacted Mango Markets weren’t subject to existing U.S. criminal law.

The case was the first in the crypto world tied to digital asset manipulation. The world of decentralized finance—DeFi for short—is a highly experimental and risky industry in the crypto world. Hacks like the one that hit Mango Markets are not out of the ordinary. 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission last year also filed charges against Avraham Eisenberg, and against the protocol and its founders. Mango Markets users this week voted to pass a proposal to not admit or deny any wrongdoing in a CFTC settlement, but to pay a $500,000 fine to the regulator. 

Jorge G. Tenreiro, acting chief of the crypto assets and cyber unit for the SEC, said Friday: “Since the inception of our crypto enforcement program, our view has been that the label ‘DAO’ does not change the reality of who is behind a project, what activities they engage in, or whether their activities need to be registered.”

“If you engage in securities-intermediary functions,” he continued in the statement, “you must register or be exempt from doing so, regardless of the technology employed and the type of legal entity used.”

Editor’s note: This story is breaking and will be updated with additional information.