Robinhood Ex-Engineers Charged with Insider Trading on Hyperliquid
Two former Robinhood engineers have been charged by US prosecutors for allegedly using confidential information about upcoming cryptocurrency listings to profit from trades on Hyperliquid. Hefu Chai and Huaisong 'Jerry' Xiang bought perpetual contracts linked to tokens ahead of their debut on the platform, with each defendant profiting more than $50,000 from the trades between 2025 and 2026.
The US Department of Justice alleges that Chai and Xiang had access to a private Slack channel containing information about planned listings, which they used to open long positions on Hyperliquid. The prosecutors claim they closed these positions when their value increased after the tokens were listed on Robinhood.
Both engineers worked at Robinhood between 2021 and 2026, with Chai serving as a technical lead responsible for new digital-asset listings. Xiang was involved in crypto listings as a software engineer. The company's policy prohibited members of the group from trading on Robinhood or any other platform 24 hours before or after a listing or delisting announcement.
Prosecutors allege Chai traded perpetuals ahead of at least 10 announcements involving tokens including MEW, MOODENG, ASTER, XPL, HYPE, ENA, and AERO. Xiang allegedly first traded POPCAT perpetuals in March 2025 before trading ahead of at least 10 other listing announcements.