2024年5月，Anton 与 James Peraire-Bueno 因被控窃取加密货币2,500万美元受审，审期三周半，2025年11月7日因陪审团无法达成裁决而宣告流审。陪审员一致认定事实，但无法将事实与法律清晰对应，折射出区块链案件中“代码即法律”争议的复杂性。争论焦点在于依照平台代码允许的行为是否构成欺诈，部分法律从业者指出该论点在法庭上展现影响力，尤其当行为完全落在系统规则之内时更具争议性。
案件核心在于以太坊每数秒将数百至数千笔交易打包成区块，交易在公开候审池中暴露，使自动化交易机器人可在纳秒级抢先交易并通过“夹击攻击”赚取微利。兄弟二人被指利用代码漏洞反向攻击夹击机器人并抽干其账户。检方称此举为“高速掉包”式欺骗，辩方则认为其行为符合竞争性交易环境规则。关于漏洞利用的法律地位与意图证明形成关键矛盾，技术复杂性与规范模糊共同促成流审。
争议延伸至监管层面：若代码可执行即被视为可接受，则传统欺诈框架将被削弱；若视其为欺诈，则需重新界定区块链市场适用的规制边界。加密倡议组织主张链上参与者依据自执行规则竞争，而批评者指出可利用性不等于合法性。核心问题转化为社会是否接受未受监管的市场及其风险，或是否需为区块链建立独立规则体系。
In May 2024, Anton and James Peraire-Bueno were charged with stealing $25 million in cryptocurrency, tried over three and a half weeks, and on Nov. 7, 2025, the case ended in mistrial after jurors failed to reach a verdict. Jurors agreed on the facts but could not align them with legal standards, highlighting the difficulty of applying traditional fraud law to blockchain disputes and the recurring tension around whether actions permitted by code can be considered lawful. Legal analysts noted that arguments asserting that on-chain behavior within system rules is nonfraudulent appeared to resonate.
The case centered on Ethereum’s batching of hundreds to thousands of transactions into blocks every few seconds, leaving pending orders visible in a public mempool that enables arbitrage bots to perform nanosecond “sandwich attacks.” The brothers were accused of exploiting a flaw to reverse-attack these bots and drain their accounts. Prosecutors characterized this as a deceptive high-speed bait-and-switch, while the defense argued it aligned with competitive trading norms. The legal dispute turned on whether exploiting a vulnerability constitutes fraud and whether intent can be distinguished when identical transactions can be executed with or without deceptive purpose.
The broader issue extends to regulation: If code-permitted actions are deemed acceptable, traditional fraud doctrines weaken; if deemed illegal, blockchain markets require clearer rule sets. Crypto advocates argue that participants operate under mathematically explicit, self-executing rules, while critics counter that exploitability does not confer legality. The core policy question becomes whether society accepts the risks of minimally regulated markets or whether blockchain warrants distinct regulatory boundaries.