Robinhood Engineers Charged With Insider Trading Using Hyperliquid Perpetuals

U.S. prosecutors have charged Hefu Chai and Huaisong Xiang, both engineers at Robinhood, with commodities and wire fraud. The charges allege that the two used internal, non-public information regarding upcoming crypto token listings to trade perpetual futures on the decentralized platform Hyperliquid.

According to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jamie McDonald, the defendants allegedly misappropriated confidential information to trade in derivatives markets for personal gain. The case highlights that trading on decentralized derivatives platforms remains subject to federal fraud laws, and the use of perpetual futures does not provide a shield against such charges.

The complaints allege that between 2025 and 2026, Chai and Xiang accessed a private Slack channel designated for employees labeled Coin Aware Individuals. This group had access to information about planned listings on Robinhood Crypto. Company policy explicitly prohibited these employees from trading the relevant tokens on any platform until 24 hours after a public announcement.

Prosecutors claim that Chai traded ahead of at least 10 listing announcements, while Xiang traded ahead of at least 11. Each defendant allegedly profited more than $50,000 from these trades. If convicted, they could face up to 10 years in prison.

A spokesperson for Robinhood stated that the company has zero tolerance for insider trading and takes market integrity seriously. The firm reported that it immediately investigated the matter, notified law enforcement and regulators, and is continuing to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.

FBI assistant director in charge James C. Barnacle Jr. noted that the charges stem from the alleged exploitation of confidential business information taken from their employer to trade perpetual futures.