Today in crypto, a judge has vacated key fraud and manipulation convictions against Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg, US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs posted a significant amount of inflows this week, and US lawmakers have urged the Justice Department to investigate President Donald Trump's crypto dinner.
Judge overturns fraud convictions in Mango Markets exploit case
A US federal judge has vacated key fraud and manipulation convictions against Avraham Eisenberg, the trader at the center of the case involving a $110 million exploit of the decentralized exchange Mango Markets.
On Friday, US District Judge Arun Subramanian ruled that the evidence presented at trial failed to support the jury’s conclusion that Eisenberg made materially false representations to Mango Markets.
The decision vacates Eisenberg’s convictions for commodities fraud and market manipulation and acquits him of a third charge, significantly weakening the government’s case.
Eisenberg, a self-proclaimed “applied game theorist,” was convicted in 2024 for artificially inflating the price of Mango’s MNGO token by over 1,300% in a matter of minutes and using the resulting gains as collateral to withdraw $110 million in crypto assets from the platform.
Bitcoin ETFs post $2.75B in weekly inflows as price sits above $108K
US-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded-funds (ETFs) have recorded a total of $2.75 billion in inflows this week amid Bitcoin surpassing its January all-time high of $109,000.
The $2.75 billion inflow total was nearly 4.5 times larger than the spot Bitcoin ETF’s previous week’s $608 million in inflows, according to Farside data.
On May 23, the final day of the trading week, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $211.7 million in inflows. However, BlackRock’s IBIT was the only fund to post gains in the trading day, adding $430.8 million and extending its inflow streak to eight consecutive days.
Grayscale’s GBTC led outflows with $89.2 million, followed by ARK 21Shares’ ARKB with $73.9 million.
US House members call for investigation into Trump's memecoin dinner
Members of the US House of Representatives called for the Justice Department to investigate Donald Trump’s May 22 dinner for his top memecoin investors, citing concerns about “foreign influence over US policy decisions” and “potential corruption and emoluments clause violations.”
In a May 22 letter to the Justice Department, 35 House members asked the public integrity section acting chief, Edward Sullivan, to launch an inquiry over the memecoin dinner to determine whether it violated the federal bribery statute or the foreign emoluments clause of the US Constitution.
Under the emoluments clause, a US president is barred from accepting any gift from a foreign state without the approval of Congress. Bloomberg reported that a majority of the attendees at the memecoin dinner were likely foreign nationals based on their connections to crypto exchanges.
“US law prohibits foreign persons from contributing to US political campaigns,” said the letter. “However, the $TRUMP memecoin, including the promotion of a dinner promising exclusive access to the President, opens the door for foreign governments to buy influence with the President, all without disclosing their identities.”
The call for an investigation and a press conference asking Trump to “release the guest list” for the dinner both occurred hours before the event, which was held at the Trump National Golf Club outside Washington, DC. A group of protesters, joined by Senator Jeff Merkley, gathered outside the venue with signs stating “illegal crypto party” and “democracy is not for sale.”
