Robinhood Engineers Charged With Fraud Over Alleged Crypto Listing Trades
Summary
Federal prosecutors charged two Robinhood engineers, Hefu Chai and Huaisong “Jerry” Xiang, with commodities fraud and wire fraud for allegedly using confidential information about upcoming Robinhood Crypto token listings to trade profitably on Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures market. The DOJ says they bought related “perps” before public announcements and each made more than $50,000 between 2025 and 2026. Prosecutors framed the case as insider trading through derivatives under the Commodity Exchange Act, not securities fraud. Robinhood cooperated with investigators. If convicted, each faces up to 10 years for commodities fraud and up to 20 years for wire fraud.
