US charges ex-Robinhood engineers over alleged pre-listing crypto trades

The former employees allegedly earned more than $50,000 each by trading Hyperliquid perpetuals ahead of Robinhood token listings.

US prosecutors on Tuesday charged two former Robinhood engineers with commodities fraud and wire fraud for allegedly using confidential information about upcoming cryptocurrency listings to profit from perpetual futures trades on Hyperliquid. 

According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Hefu Chai and Huaisong “Jerry” Xiang bought perpetual contracts linked to tokens ahead of Robinhood Crypto listings. The DOJ alleged each profited more than $50,000 from the trades between 2025 and 2026. 

The DOJ said Chai and Xiang had access to a private company Slack channel containing information about planned listings. Prosecutors allege they used that information to open long positions on Hyperliquid, closing them when their value increased after their debut on Robinhood. 

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