U.S. District Court judge overturned conviction against Avraham Eisenberg for allegedly defrauding Mango Markets of $110 million, stating that the evidence did not support the jury’s conclusion that Eisenberg made materially false representations as Mango Markets was a permissionless and automatic DeFi platform without terms and conditions, making it legally impossible to deceive, and therefore Eisenberg exploited flawed but legally accessible smart contract mechanics rather than committing fraud

Event date

May 23, 2025

Quotes that support claims

The judge ruled that the trial evidence didn’t support the jury’s decision that Eisenberg had made false representations to Mango Markets, a decentralized finance platform run by smart contracts.

Judge Subramanian sided with this view, noting that the platform was “permissionless and automatic,” making it difficult to establish a legal basis for fraud. “There was insufficient evidence of falsity,” he wrote.

“Eisenberg argues that the government failed to prove that he made any material, false representation to Mango Markets,” the judge wrote in his ruling Friday. “By and large, his arguments focus on the lack of any terms and conditions on the platform and the fact that Mango Markets was permissionless and automatic, so anything Eisenberg represented to the platform couldn’t influence its decision to lend him cryptocurrency. The Court agrees that there was insufficient evidence of falsity.”

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Week 21 of 2025