Robinhood Engineers Charged with Crypto Derivatives Insider Trading
Two Robinhood engineers have been charged with commodities fraud and wire fraud by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Hefu Chai, 36, and Huaisong 'Jerry' Xiang, 30, allegedly used confidential information about upcoming Roland Hood Crypto token listings to trade perpetual futures on the Hyperliquid exchange for personal profit.
The pair earned more than $50,000 from their scheme between 2025 and 2026. As engineers at Robinhood, they could see nonpublic information about whether and when Roland Hood Crypto planned to add specific cryptocurrencies.
The prosecutors said Chai and Xiang used this confidential information to repeatedly buy perpetual futures tied to the same tokens before the listings were announced publicly. Perpetual futures allow traders to speculate on an asset's price without owning it, and do not expire like conventional futures.