Robinhood engineers charged over fraudulent Hyperliquid trades

Two Robinhood engineers have been accused of using the platform’s confidential crypto listings to insider trade perpetual futures on the decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid. 

The US filed the charges yesterday against 36-year-old Hefu Chai and 30-year-old Huaisong Xiang, accusing them of wire fraud and commodities fraud.

Their knowledge of Robinhood’s plans to support certain cryptocurrencies was allegedly used to trade positions on Hyperliquid, which in turn constituted a breach of duty. 

Across 2025 and 2026, each of them allegedly made over $50,000 trading with the undisclosed information. 

Read more: Did ‘insider’ secretly short Robinhood on Hyperliquid?

US attorney Jamie McDonald said, “Today’s charges make clear that corporate insiders cannot evade the securities and commodities laws by trading based on misappropriated information in derivatives like perpetual futures, tokenized securities, or other similar financial instruments.”

Onlookers linked yesterday’s filing to the work of pseudonymous researcher Astra Trades.

They uncovered a series of trades in 2025 that saw one user buying dozens of tokens, across a few months, minutes before they were listed publicly on Robinhood. 

Astra Trades has also shared suspicious activity that involved well-timed Hyperliquid shorts on Robinhood stock that were placed just before disappointing earnings calls.

It believes it’s the same trader conducting the shorts and token pre-buys.

In 2023, the US sentenced a former Coinbase employee who received the country’s first-ever crypto insider trading charge.

Ishan Wahi tipped off his brother and friend with confidential upcoming listings. They then purchased these cryptocurrencies before they were listed and sold them for profit around the time of the listings. 

A new wave of insider trading has also plagued crypto-based prediction markets. 

Suspicions have been raised around markets involving Israeli military action, the kidnapping of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, and the Nobel Peace Prize. 

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