NEW YORK, NY — Mango Markets exploiter Avraham “Avi” Eisenberg, who stole $110 million from the now-defunct decentralized finance protocol in 2022, was sentenced to 52 months in prison on Thursday — on his guilty plea to possession of child sexual exploitation material, not for his conviction on the crypto theft.

The sentencing comes a year after a New York jury found Eisenberg guilty of wire fraud, commodities fraud and commodities manipulation for his Mango Markets stunt, and a year after he separately pleaded guilty to the possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), which was found on his devices after his arrest.

Defense attorneys moved for either a new trial or an acquittal on the Mango Markets-related charges last year, claiming that the Department of Justice pursued the case in the wrong venue (the Southern District of New York), that the government hadn’t properly proved that the MNGO Perpetual was a «swap,» that Eisenberg intended to manipulate the MNGO Perpetual’s price and that his «alleged deceptions … were immaterial.»

In a hearing in Manhattan on Thursday, Judge Arun Subramanian said he would sentence Eisenberg to more than four years in prison at FCI Otisville, a medium-security facility about two hours’ drive from Manhattan, but that there was a «non-zero chance I will grant that motion» related to the Mango Markets-related charges.

The bulk of any sentence would be related to the CSAM charge anyway, the judge said.

«I think that in this specific area, general deterrence has more weight … the only way to try to stem the tide of the distribution of this material» is through a prison sentence, the judge said, before reading three witness statements.

The judge also said he acknowledged to Eisenberg’s effort to better understand the impact of his crime, but that a prison sentence was still necessary. Eisenberg is sentenced to five years of probation with strict rules after he is released from prison, the judge said, but will have to install monitoring software on all of his electronic devices and go through a drug outpatient program.

Presentence filings

In their sentencing submission to the court, prosecutors asked for Eisenberg to serve between 6.5 and 8 years in prison, stressing the seriousness of his offenses. Though Eisenberg has maintained that his crypto trading actions on Mango Markets were “compliant” with the protocol and thus didn’t break the law (an argument a jury clearly did not buy), prosecutors say Eisenberg was well aware that what he was doing was a crime. Before his Mango Markets heist, he’d filed suit against someone else for crypto-related market manipulation, and fled the country for Israel once his identity as the attacker was unveiled.

Prosecutors also detailed Eisenberg’s child sexual abuse material charges, telling the judge that between 2017 and 2022, he downloaded 1,274 sexually-explicit images and videos of children — including toddlers and two-month-old infants — as well as “depictions of sadistic violence and masochism against children.”

In their own sentencing submission to the court, Eisenberg and his lawyers attempted to blame his strict religious upbringing and his lifelong “struggles to conform to social norms” for his crimes, calling him a “fundamentally decent person” and detailing his challenges adapting to the “daily horrors” of life in jail.

Disclaimer: The analyst who co-wrote this piece owns shares of Strategy (MSTR).

Strategy (MSTR) reported a first-quarter 2025 loss of $16.49 after posting a $5.9 billion writedown on its bitcoin stack thanks to a sizable decline in the price of BTC during the year’s first three months.

Led by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, the company, though, shows no signs of slowing its pace of bitcoin acquisitions. Having used up nearly all of its previous $21 billion common stock offering with its most recent BTC buys last week, the company alongside earnings announced a fresh $21 billion at-the-market offering.

Turning to its software business, revenue for the quarter fell 3.6% to $111.1 million from $115.2 million the year before. Subscription services revenue for the quarter came in at $37.1 million, compared with $23.0 million in the year prior.

During the quarter, Strategy achieved an 11.0% «BTC Yield», reflecting growth in bitcoin (BTC) holdings relative to diluted shares outstanding. The «BTC $ Gain» for the quarter was around $4.1 billion, moving the company closer toward its target of a $10 billion gain for the year.

The company lifted its long-term target for BTC Yield to 25% from 15% and for BTC $ Gain to $15 billion from $10 billion.

Shares of the company are trading 27% higher year-to-date. Bitcoin is trading around $96,547, about 2.5% higher over the past 24 hours.

Including April purchases, the company holds 553,555 bitcoin acquired for $37.9 billion or $68,459 each. That stack is worth roughly $53 billion at the current price.

“Our capital markets strategy continues to grow our Bitcoin holdings while delivering superior shareholder value. With over 70 public companies worldwide now adopting a Bitcoin treasury standard, we are proud to be at the forefront in pioneering this space.” Phong Le, president and CEO of Strategy, said in a statement.

Shares are marginally higher in after hours trading.

What may or may not have been a blow-off top last week in the price of gold appears to have benefitted bitcoin (BTC) and that trend could be set to continue.

Already among the best-performing global assets in recent months, gold’s rally powered to new heights in the weeks following President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs in early April.

The price ultimately peaked above $3,500 per ounce on April 21, with bitcoin at the time changing hands at $87,000 — roughly flat from Liberation Day, but lower by about 20% from its record high hit in January.

Since, though, gold has tumbled nearly 10% to its current price just above $3,200 per ounce. At the same time, bitcoin has rallied about 10% to a two month high of $97,000.

«I think bitcoin is a better hedge than gold against strategic asset reallocation out of the U.S.,» said Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick.

Kendrick took note that the ETF inflow situation has flipped along with the price, with money headed into bitcoin funds surging past that headed into gold funds.

Further, said Kendrick, the last time bitcoin ETF inflows had such a wide margin over gold was the week of the U.S. presidential election. Two months later, the price of bitcoin had risen more than 40% to above $100,000.