A Up-to-date York jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case of Anton and James Peraire-Bueno, MIT-educated brothers charged with fraud and money laundering related to a 2023 exploit on the Ethereum blockchain that wiped out $25 million in digital assets.

In Friday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Jessica Clarke declared a mistrial in the case after jurors failed to reach an agreement on whether to convict or acquit the brothers, Inner City Press reported.

The decision came after a three-week trial in federal court in Manhattan that produced various prosecutors and defense theories about Peraire-Buenos’ alleged activities involving maximum extraction value (MEV) bots.

A MEV attack occurs when investors or validators exploit the ordering of transactions on the blockchain to make a profit. Using automated MEV bots, they pre-empt or postpone other transactions by paying higher priority fees.

In the brothers’ case, they allegedly used MEV bots to “scam” users into transactions. The exploit, although planned by the pair for months, reportedly took just 12 seconds and netted the couple $25 million.

Prosecutors will make their closing arguments before the jury this week he argued that the brothers “scammed” and “defrauded” users by engaging in a bait-and-switch scheme that allowed them to extract approximately $25 million in crypto. They cited evidence suggesting that the two planned their moves for months and studied the potential consequences of their actions.

“Ladies and gentlemen, bait and switch is not a commercial strategy,” prosecutors said Tuesday, according to Inner City Press. “It’s a scam. It’s a scam. It’s system spoofing. They pretended to be a legitimate MEV-Boost validator.”

Related: MEV bot exploit goes to US court, testing legal gray areas of cryptocurrencies

In contrast, Peraire-Buenos’ defense attorneys objected to the U.S. government’s theory that the two posed as “honest validators” to obtain funds, though the court ultimately allowed their arguments to be presented to a jury.

“It’s like stealing a base in baseball,” the shortstop said Tuesday. “If there is no fraud, there is no conspiracy and there is no money laundering.”

What are the threats to the cryptocurrency industry after the verdict?

While the case ended without a verdict, the overturned trial left the crypto industry divided, with many observers debating the legal and technical implications of treating MEV-related activity as a potential crime. Cryptocurrency organization Coin Center filed an amicus brief on Monday after opposition from prosecutors.

“I don’t think what’s in the indictment constitutes wire fraud.” he said Carl Volz, partner at the Gunnercooke law firm, in a Monday article for DLNews. “A jury could come to a different conclusion, but if they do, it will be because the brothers used Google stupidly and talked to the wrong people too much and for too long.”

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This is a developing story and more information will be added as it becomes available.