Solana’s Mango Markets DEX Raises $70M in MNGO Token Sale

Decentralized exchange of the Solana blockchain, Mango Markets has raised $70M in its token sale yesterday.

Solana’s Mango Markets DEX Raises $70M in MNGO Token Sale

Investors had plowed over $500 M in USDC into the cross-margin trading platform’s in 24-hour sale, racing to get a share of 500 M MNGO tokens up for grabs. But much of that drained away in the final minutes of a daylong grace period that followed, leaving $70,462,383 locked up in tokens.

The raise from the still-nascent project reflects the rising wealth of the Solana blockchain. Many decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols want to raise between $1 million and $15 million in seed stage funding, one source said, making Mango DAO’s (decentralized autonomous organization) $70 million an outlier. 

Mango offers a trading hub for spot markets, perpetual futures and lending. It sources liquidity from its own pools as well as Serum, Solana’s answer to Uniswap that enjoys the backing of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

The sale was closed to U.S. users, likely in an attempt to stave off the regulatory scrutiny that can hamstring similar projects – sometimes years down the line.

The DAO’s website said MNGO has 3 main objectives: to capitalize an insurance fund; to distribute the DEX governance token; and to incentivize liquidity for market makers. 90 % of tokens are locked up in a governance fund, 5% in an insurance policy and the remainder in contributor tokens.

Exploits happen in the wild west of decentralization, and Mango DAO cautioned token buyers that they could not guarantee its smart contracts would be bug-free. 

Solana Labs, raised $314 M in June. Solana itself has been the blockchain of choice for Bankman-Fried, who has invested heavily in Solana-based projects.

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