DOJ Charges Robinhood Engineers With Fraud Over Hyperliquid Perpetual Trades
Two Robinhood engineers face federal fraud charges for allegedly using confidential cryptocurrency listing information to make profitable perpetual futures trades on Hyperliquid. Ad Ad Robinhood Engineers Face Federal Fraud Charges Federal prosecutors charged Hefu Chai and Huaisong Xiang, also known as “Jerry Xiang,” with commodities fraud and wire fraud. Defendants were both engineers at Robinhood Markets at the time of the alleged trading activity. They held the power of access to confidential information regarding planned cryptocurrency listings on Robinhood Crypto. Prosecutors say the engineers were aware of which cryptocurrencies Robinhood intended to support before it publicly announced them. Between 2025 and 2026, Chai and Xiang allegedly used that information to trade perpetual futures on Hyperliquid. They reportedly opened positions linked to cryptocurrencies before Robinhood announced support for those tokens. Discover more News Distributed & Cloud Computing Finance Prosecutors claim prices moved after several listing announcements, allowing the engineers to profit from their positions. All the defendants allegedly made over $50,000 in trades related to Robinhoods private listing efforts. Ad Ad Prosecutors Detail Hyperliquid Perpetual Trades Hyperliquid has a decentralized derivatives exchange (DEX) offering perpetual futures based on cryptocurrencies and other underlying assets. These products give traders a chance to wager on price changes without having to buy and possess the underlying asset. Unlike traditional futures contracts,









