Overview
- U.S. District Judge Jessica G. L. Clarke ended the four-week trial after three days of deliberations failed to produce a unanimous verdict.
- Jurors told the court their discussions led to tears and sleepless nights, and that further deliberations would not change the outcome.
- Prosecutors alleged a first-of-its-kind scheme that exploited MEV-boost by ‘poisoning’ a block with invalid zeros to divert $25 million in 12 seconds.
- The defense argued the maneuver was a legitimate, preprogrammed trading strategy in a competitive, bot-driven Ethereum market.
- James and Anton Peraire-Bueno faced wire fraud, conspiracy, and money-laundering charges carrying up to 20 years each, and prosecutors have not said whether they will retry the case.