The U.S. Department of Justice has charged two Robinhood engineers with commodities fraud and wire fraud, alleging they misappropriated confidential information about upcoming crypto listings on Robinhood Crypto and used it to trade perpetual futures on Hyperliquid.
Prosecutors allege the two repeatedly opened positions ahead of Robinhood's public listing announcements between 2025 and 2026, with each making more than $50,000 in alleged profits.
According to the DOJ, Hefu Chai and Huaisong Xiang used advance knowledge of planned token listings to trade the corresponding assets on Hyperliquid before the information became public. Each faces one count under the Commodity Exchange Act and one count of wire fraud, carrying maximum sentences of 10 and 20 years, respectively.
The case adds to growing scrutiny around the use of confidential crypto market information and follows a 2022 DOJ case involving advance knowledge of Coinbase token listings. Unlike that case, the Robinhood employees are accused of trading perpetual futures rather than the underlying tokens, highlighting how insider-information enforcement is increasingly extending into crypto derivatives markets.
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