A high-stakes crypto fraud trial ended in collapse on Friday when a weary and divided jury forced a judge to declare a mistrial in the case of two brothers accused of stealing $25 million from traders on Ethereum.The case against Anton and James Peraire-Bueno is the first criminal prosecution to centre on maximal extractable value, or MEV — the process by which traders profit from how transactions are ordered on Ethereum. But unlike ordinary MEV strategies that profit from public transaction ordering, prosecutors say the brothers went deeper and exploited Ethereum’s validator layer itself. The Department of Justice described the brothers’ strategy as “the very first exploit of its kind” that targeted “the very integrity of the Ethereum blockchain.”They “allegedly used their specialized skills and education to tamper with and manipulate the protocols relied upon by millions of Ethereum users,” said the indictment. The brothers are charged with wire fraud and money-laundering.But the trial’s technical complexity and uncertainty over how existing fraud laws apply to blockchains left the jury in a deadlock.According to a courtroom thread from Inner City Press, the jury, after three days of deliberation, sent a note to Judge Clarke saying they were “not making any progress.”“We have another note. We have debated with each member being open. We held another vote. We are no closer to a unanimous decision. We are under stress. Yesterday some cried. Many have not slept. This is hardship,” Judge Clarke was quoted as reading by Inner City Press.Prosecutors suggested resuming deliberations on Monday or replacing a departing juror, but Judge Clarke rejected both options. “There is nothing in this note indicating they could progress,” he said. “This is their 11th note, no progress. I am going to declare a mistrial.”A mistrial means the jury couldn’t reach a verdict, so the case ended without a decision — prosecutors must now choose whether to retry the brothers, negotiate a plea, or drop the charges.During the trial, tensions appear to have spiked when prosecutors suggested instructing the jury that the defendants could be found guilty “even if they did not know” their actions were illegal. The defence called the proposal “outrageous” and insisted the law required proof that the brothers acted “knowingly, willfully, and with intent” — called “mens rea” in law.“Mens rea is required - finding other mens rea is not enough. The jury has to find all of the elements: knowingly, willfully and with intent,” the defence was quoted as saying.Judge Clarke sided partly with the prosecution, telling jurors that “wrongful means a bad purpose” and that “there is no requirement that the defendant knew that their actions were illegal.”In an op-ed for DL News last week, Carl E. Volz, a self-described ‘crypto-skeptic’ lawyer and a partner at law firm gunnercooke in New York, called the case “a hangover from the Biden-era hyper-skepticism about crypto.”“Looking back, I believe this case was born of a combination of ignorance and fear,” Volz said.What is the MEV brothers trial about?In typical MEV, automated bots compete to profit from public transactions waiting to be confirmed in the mempool, Ethereum’s queue of pending trades. These bots often use “sandwich” tactics, buying just before a large trade and selling immediately after to capture small price movements.But prosecutors say the alleged exploit went far beyond these regular MEV strategies.Prosecutors allege that the brothers operated multiple Ethereum validators — responsible for ordering and confirming transactions — and used that privileged position to manipulate how a block was built. According to the indictment, when one of their validators was chosen to propose a block, the brothers gained access to pending private transactions, then tampered with the block to alter certain trades and divert about $25 million in cryptocurrency into their own accounts.The defence, backed by Washington-based crypto think-tank Coin Center, argues the brothers acted within Ethereum’s internal logic.Jailing someone for winning in the MEV game “wildly recalibrates the incentives for non-standard block validation,” according to Coin Center.“The genius of open blockchain systems lies in their ability to translate honesty into mathematics and sanction into code. When external authorities substitute that precision with ex-post expectations about fairness or intent, they do not reinforce the system—they destabilise it,” the think tank said.A high-stakes crypto fraud trial ended in collapse on Friday when a weary and divided jury forced a judge to declare a mistrial in the case of two brothers accused of stealing $25 million from traders on Ethereum.The case against Anton and James Peraire-Bueno is the first criminal prosecution to centre on maximal extractable value, or MEV — the process by which traders profit from how transactions are ordered on Ethereum. But unlike ordinary MEV strategies that profit from public transaction ordering, prosecutors say the brothers went deeper and exploited Ethereum’s validator layer itself. The Department of Justice described the brothers’ strategy as “the very first exploit of its kind” that targeted “the very integrity of the Ethereum blockchain.”They “allegedly used their specialized skills and education to tamper with and manipulate the protocols relied upon by millions of Ethereum users,” said the indictment. The brothers are charged with wire fraud and money-laundering.But the trial’s technical complexity and uncertainty over how existing fraud laws apply to blockchains left the jury in a deadlock.According to a courtroom thread from Inner City Press, the jury, after three days of deliberation, sent a note to Judge Clarke saying they were “not making any progress.”“We have another note. We have debated with each member being open. We held another vote. We are no closer to a unanimous decision. We are under stress. Yesterday some cried. Many have not slept. This is hardship,” Judge Clarke was quoted as reading by Inner City Press.Prosecutors suggested resuming deliberations on Monday or replacing a departing juror, but Judge Clarke rejected both options. “There is nothing in this note indicating they could progress,” he said. “This is their 11th note, no progress. I am going to declare a mistrial.”A mistrial means the jury couldn’t reach a verdict, so the case ended without a decision — prosecutors must now choose whether to retry the brothers, negotiate a plea, or drop the charges.During the trial, tensions appear to have spiked when prosecutors suggested instructing the jury that the defendants could be found guilty “even if they did not know” their actions were illegal. The defence called the proposal “outrageous” and insisted the law required proof that the brothers acted “knowingly, willfully, and with intent” — called “mens rea” in law.“Mens rea is required - finding other mens rea is not enough. The jury has to find all of the elements: knowingly, willfully and with intent,” the defence was quoted as saying.Judge Clarke sided partly with the prosecution, telling jurors that “wrongful means a bad purpose” and that “there is no requirement that the defendant knew that their actions were illegal.”In an op-ed for DL News last week, Carl E. Volz, a self-described ‘crypto-skeptic’ lawyer and a partner at law firm gunnercooke in New York, called the case “a hangover from the Biden-era hyper-skepticism about crypto.”“Looking back, I believe this case was born of a combination of ignorance and fear,” Volz said.What is the MEV brothers trial about?In typical MEV, automated bots compete to profit from public transactions waiting to be confirmed in the mempool, Ethereum’s queue of pending trades. These bots often use “sandwich” tactics, buying just before a large trade and selling immediately after to capture small price movements.But prosecutors say the alleged exploit went far beyond these regular MEV strategies.Prosecutors allege that the brothers operated multiple Ethereum validators — responsible for ordering and confirming transactions — and used that privileged position to manipulate how a block was built. According to the indictment, when one of their validators was chosen to propose a block, the brothers gained access to pending private transactions, then tampered with the block to alter certain trades and divert about $25 million in cryptocurrency into their own accounts.The defence, backed by Washington-based crypto think-tank Coin Center, argues the brothers acted within Ethereum’s internal logic.Jailing someone for winning in the MEV game “wildly recalibrates the incentives for non-standard block validation,” according to Coin Center.“The genius of open blockchain systems lies in their ability to translate honesty into mathematics and sanction into code. When external authorities substitute that precision with ex-post expectations about fairness or intent, they do not reinforce the system—they destabilise it,” the think tank said.