November 10, 2025
• less than 3 min read
On Friday, a Manhattan federal judge declared a mistrial in the case of two brothers accused of stealing $25 million worth of cryptocurrency in 12 seconds through a complicated scheme on the Ethereum blockchain, the latest example of prosecutors falling short in their attempt to bring order to the industry.
Literal crypto bros
MIT-educated James and Anton Peraire-Bueno honed their skills in math and computer science. In 2023, prosecutors alleged they “fraudulently gained access to pending private transactions and used t…
November 10, 2025
• less than 3 min read
On Friday, a Manhattan federal judge declared a mistrial in the case of two brothers accused of stealing $25 million worth of cryptocurrency in 12 seconds through a complicated scheme on the Ethereum blockchain, the latest example of prosecutors falling short in their attempt to bring order to the industry.
Literal crypto bros
MIT-educated James and Anton Peraire-Bueno honed their skills in math and computer science. In 2023, prosecutors alleged they “fraudulently gained access to pending private transactions and used that access to alter certain transactions and obtain their victims’ cryptocurrency.” At the core of the issue are “sandwich attacks” that don’t involve bread or mustard:
- It’s when bots are used to place buy and sell orders around a person’s order; the buy order drives up the price on the person, and the sell order cashes in.
- The brothers set a trap for the bots with bots of their own, according to testimony, which allowed them to drain $25 million from three users.
The brothers said their ploy was fair game in an unregulated market. Prosecutors unsuccessfully argued that their move was fraudulent.
In a note to the judge, the jurors reported that the incredibly complicated case had placed them under an “emotional burden” that caused half of them to break down in tears, a reasonable response to having to listen to people argue about crypto. After three days of deliberation, they were deadlocked.
Zoom out: It’s the latest crypto-based setback for prosecutors, who are attempting to apply the law to a decentralized finance world. In May, the wire fraud conviction of crypto trader Avraham “Avi” Eisenberg was overturned after he was convicted of swindling $110 million. Then, in August, a mistrial was declared in the $1 billion crypto laundering case involving Roman Storm, the creator of Tornado Cash, which anonymized transactions on the Ethereum blockchain.—DL
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Morning Brew delivers quick and insightful updates about the business world every day of the week from Wall St. to Silicon Valley.