Robinhood Engineers Charged with Commodities Fraud Over Hyperliquid Trades
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged two former Robinhood engineers with commodities fraud and wire fraud, alleging they used confidential listing information to trade Hyperliquid perpetuals before token listings.
Hefu Chai, 36, and Huaisong Xiang, 30, allegedly made more than $50,000 each from their trades between 2025 and 2026. The DOJ says they had access to nonpublic information through their engineering roles at Robinhood, which covered whether and when the company planned to support additional cryptocurrencies.
The pair allegedly bought perpetual futures tied to tokens scheduled for Robinhood listings while in possession of material nonpublic information. Prosecutors say the trades occurred before public listing announcements, and that future listings had commercial value and could affect token prices after announcements.