Mango Markets Hacker Provides Ultimatum: ‘Repay Bad Debt’

The hacker behind the recent exploit that drained Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Mango Markets of $100 million has proposed an ultimatum to the community.

  • Posting on Mango's governance proposal platform, the hacker says they want Mango’s treasury to use its $70 million available in USDC to repay bad debt within the protocol.
  • This bad debt stems from a bailout that Mango Markets and rival Solana lending platform Solend put together for a large Solana whale that had $207 million in debt spread across multiple lending platforms.
  • At one time the whale had borrowed 88% of the available USDC on Solend.
  • The bailout was put together over concern that should the SOL token drop by another 20%, the whale’s positions would be liquidated, which would cause contagion and adversely impact the Solana ecosystem.
  • As a result of this ongoing issue with Mango Markets, the Wormhole token bridge announced that it's pausing transfers from Solana.
  • Part of the hacker’s ultimatum involves a promise from Mango that they will not pursue a criminal investigation or freeze his funds.
  • Mango's MNGO token is down 38% on-day.