Coin Center, a nonprofit that supports digital currency policy, has submitted a statement in a criminal trial involving two brothers accused of using Ethereum’s
Anton and James Peraire-Bueno are being prosecuted for allegedly manipulating Ethereum using a technique known as maximal extractable value (MEV).
Coin Center’s brief was not filed as a party in the case but rather as a third-party contribution offering an expert perspective. In its filing, the organization disagreed with the government’s argument that the defendants committed fraud by failing to act as “honest validators”.
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The group explained that, in cryptocurrency systems like Ethereum, acting honestly means following the protocol’s rules as written in the software. Coin Center stated that the brothers did not break these rules and that applying a different standard would be unfair and confusing.
The brief went on to say that the government is trying to create a new behavioral expectation for validators, one that does not currently exist in Ethereum’s design.
Coin Center warned that using criminal charges to enforce this kind of new standard could harm innovation and create legal uncertainty for others in the crypto industry.
Meanwhile, US prosecutors told the court that the brothers used false appearances to present themselves as trustworthy validators, which enabled them to carry out the exploit.
Defense lawyers argued that the supposed victims were actually automated trading bots, not individual users, and that the government’s theory makes little sense.
Recently, a former 18decimal employee, Travis Chen, testified that the brothers spent months planning a $25 million crypto theft. What did he say? Read the full story.
