Quick Takeaways
- A Manhattan Court declared a mistrial in U. S. v. Peraire-Bueno after 18 days of deliberation.
- The $25 million Ethereum sandwich attack pillow slip reignited debate over whether blockchain exploits are criminal.
- The outcome exposes how courts shun to use fraud laws to decentralise, codification-driven systems.
Mistrial in $25 Million Ethereum Sandwich Bot Case
After an 18-tense twenty-four-hour period in a Manhattan federal courtroom, the high-profile U. S. v. Peraire-Bueno trial has ended in a mistrial.
Judge Jessica G. L. Clarke announced the decision late Friday after the jury gave way to reach a consent verdict on the bursting charge of telegram fraud and money laundering.
The fount mirrors previous effectual challenges like the Tornado Cash proceedings, where U. S. authorities struggled to define accountability in decentralized finance (DeFi).
$25 Million Ethereum Case Tests Code and Intent
The trial centered on Benjamin and Noah Peraire-Bueno, two MIT graduates accused of manipulating Ethereum’s Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) system.
Prosecutors alleged that the brothers performed “sandwich attacks,” reordering transactions to drain $25 million from traders by exploiting public blockchain code.
Defense attorney forestall that the twosome act within Ethereum’s open framework, reasoning that “codification is law. ” They characterized their strategy as legitimate technological arbitrage, not deception.
After three days of deliberation, the jury stayed deadlocked, prompting Judge Clarke to officially declare a mistrial.
Code vs. Offense: The Legal Debate Intensifies
Throughout the trial, jurors wrestled with a central question: can a blockchain feat be a crime if it utilizes populace, permissionless code?
Defense attorney Looby underscored that the defendants lacked felonious intention, believing their actions were logical within Ethereum’s rules.
Prosecutors, however, described the maneuver as a “digital heist” masked by technical jargon. Judge Clarke noted that under current U.S. law, “there is no requirement that defendants knew their actions were illegal.”
This uncertainty reveals how traditional fraud statutes struggle to address decentralized, automated financial systems.
What the Mistrial Means for Crypto Regulation
The trial leaves DeFi developers, regulators, and traders without clear legal guidance on blockchain-based exploits.
If retried, U.S. v. Peraire-Bueno could set a defining precedent for when code-driven behavior crosses into criminal territory.
For now, the outcome deepens uncertainty at the intersection of engineering and constabulary, ring the Tornado Cash case, where courts limited the Treasury’s power to sanction clear-source code.
As DeFi continues to evolve, this mistrial highlights how crypto’s effectual frameworks persist untested and how the boundary between founding and illegality is still being drawn.