Crypto Bros Mistrial

Code Is Law Lives On?

De: Matthew Russell Lee

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Cryptocurrency had come a long way since the draining of the DAO in 2016. Now sandwich attackers cruised the MEV pool looking for victims. Behind them lurked the Low Carb Crusader, eying to kick out the top of the sandwich and leave it open face.

Was it a crime? The SDNY prosecutors, at least in 2024 when the case was brought, thought so. But why had the new Administration continued to pursue the case, as it had that of Roman Storm of Tornado Cash?

CZ was given a pardon, though the President said he didn't know who he was.

Among the Google searches proffered by the SDNY prosecutors against the Peraire-Buenos were, on andean medjedovic indicted in EDNY for hacking Indexed Finance and KyberSwap, these:

GX 1135 9/11/2023 andean medjedovic / andean medjedovic court case / Visited: Enforcing Crypto-Litigation Orders: Practical Difficulties Seen in … / Visited: Ontario court grants Anton Piller Order in cryptocurrency heist …

GX 1136 9/11/2023 avraham eisenberg / avraham eisenberg / andean medjedovic court case / Visited: Young Waterloo

Waterloo, indeed.


The analogies flew: you take an overweigh suitcase to the airport and the plane. You are not indicted: you pay an overweight fee.

In NFL football, you decide to take a delay of game penalty - five yards - to give more room for a so-called coffin corner punt. Again, no jail time.

These are not crimes, they are penalties on behavior that a rational actor might accept. So the Crypto Bros say it was with paying the slashing fee as a validator, even with being suspended. It was worth it. They played the game within its existing rules and they won.

Then got indicted when the loser, David Yakira, went to the police.

In an NHL hockey game, vicious checks are delivered and the police never arrive. Until a player hits another on top of the head with this stick, then gets arrested in the locker room.

In that case what if the National Hockey League protests and says, We can police this ourselves - what then? But who is the league here? Consider (below) the Coin Center amicus brief partially by white shoe White & Case and Peter Van Valkenburgh, who cites the law school old saw of Tj Hooper, 60 F.2d 737 (2d Cir. 1932) and

Nov 4, 2025, Live Bitcoin News, "Coin Center Defends Brothers Charged For $25 Million MEV Exploit On Ethereum," "According to courtroom reports from Inner City Press, government lawyers say that the two brothers “engaged in false pretenses” to steal from Ethereum users and earn $25 million;" and

Nov 4, 2025, DL News, "How the trial of two brothers tests ‘code is law’ tenet," "As of Monday, the defense was presenting its case, according to the indefatigable Matthew Russell Lee, of Inner City Press." Indefatigable but tired. Tired of censorship.

Looking back to 2023's "Crypto Creeps" (taken down for a week in 2025), there was this on Avi Eisenberg who took Code Is Law to trial, won a partial victory from "Diddy judge" Subramanian but only after or because what was found on his phone...

...And after the mistrial was declared, and some hallway praise for this live coverage, Inner City Press spoke with a juror who said it was just too complicate, that they wished they'd heard from Professor Falk - the defense's expert - at the beginning of the trial, rather than Miller from FlashBots.

Will DOJ learn from that and try it again, explaining more? Or is this particular prosecution dead? Does Code Is Law live on? Inner City Press remains on the case - on all platforms.