October, in general, has been very difficult for the DeFi space, as companies have lost a total of over $700 million to some of the biggest hacks that the market has seen.
While hacks were an unfortunate commonality throughout the market, the real cause for concern was the frequency at which all of these attacks were happening.
One after the other, companies continued to lose millions after millions with each successful attack, with very few even being able to trace where their funds went. And as the month comes to a close, one of the biggest hacks to happen this month is looking to reach a settlement.
Losing Its Collateral to a Hacker
The Mango DAO lost over $100 million in its collateral to a hacker who manipulated the system. By manipulating the system, the hacker was able to steal the collateral money as a loan. The hack certainly left the company speechless since it also showed that it had a major infrastructural hole ready for anyone to exploit.
However, the story of Mango DAO still has a silver lining, as the team tasked with recovering the funds was able to make contact with the hacker. Therefore, they are very likely to retrieve their funds, especially after considering the deal that they made.
Settling the Matter Instead of Pressing Charges
While most DeFi exchanges will usually prefer to press charges and take the hacker to court over the dispute, Mango DAO is taking a different approach. Instead of taking the hacker to court, Mango is willing to let the hacker keep almost half of the money that they stole.
In return, the hacker will give back the remainder of the collateral and will not face any jail time or legal charges. Of course, the remainder of the nearly $70 million that the thief will be giving back, they will return as governance tokens to various members of the community.
Inserting the collateral back into the token will allow them to stabilize the price of their token and allow governing members more power to vote on various issues.
Working On the Finer Details of the Agreement
Oddly enough, the current agreement that both the hacker and the team have come to was proposed by the hacker. The Mango team was trying their best to negotiate with the hacker until the latter proposed the solution on the site’s forum.
Currently, both parties are still working on the finer details of the agreement and are trying to find out what will be necessary to make the best decisions. The agreement also includes extensive details, such as all of the tokens that the hacker will return the remainder of the money as, which included USDC, AVAX, MNGO, BNB, and ETH, just to name a few.