US prosecutors have charged two former Robinhood engineers, Hefu Chai and Huaisong Xiang, with commodities and wire fraud. The Department of Justice alleges the pair used confidential information to profit from perpetual futures trades on the Hyperliquid platform between 2025 and 2026.
Chai served as a technical lead for digital-asset listings from 2021 to May 2026, while Xiang worked as a software engineer from 2024 to September 2026. Both were classified as Coin Aware Individuals, granting them access to a private Slack channel detailing upcoming token listings.
The company policy strictly prohibited these employees from trading on any platform within 24 hours of a listing or delisting announcement. Prosecutors claim the defendants bypassed these rules to open long positions on Hyperliquid, closing them for profit after the tokens debuted on Robinhood.
The DOJ alleges that each defendant earned more than $50 000 through these trades. Chai is accused of trading ahead of at least 10 announcements, including tokens such as MEW, MOODENG, ASTER, XPL, HYPE, ENA, and AERO. Xiang allegedly traded ahead of at least 11 announcements.
Each defendant faces one count of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, carrying a maximum 10-year prison sentence, and one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum of 20 years. Both individuals are currently presumed innocent pending trial.
