Robinhood Engineers Charged After Allegedly Trading Crypto on Secret Listing Information
Two Robinhood engineers have been charged within the US over an alleged crypto buying and selling scheme involving confidential firm data.
The US Department of Justice stated Hefu Chai and Huaisong Xiang allegedly used private data from Robinhood to commerce crypto perpetual futures on Hyperliquid.
Trading on Confidential Data
According to complaints unsealed by the Southern District of New York, Chai and Xiang had entry to details about upcoming cryptocurrency listings on Robinhood Crypto. Prosecutors allege that they used that data earlier than the listings had been introduced to the general public.
The two engineers allegedly purchased perpetual futures linked to tokens that Robinhood was making ready to checklist. They traded on Hyperliquid earlier than Robinhood made the listings public. The DOJ stated each males repeatedly adopted this sample between 2025 and 2026. Each defendant allegedly made greater than $50,000 from the trades.
The DOJ has charged each Chai and Xiang with commodities fraud and wire fraud. The commodities fraud cost carries a most sentence of 10 years in jail. The wire fraud cost carries a most sentence of 20 years.
Chai, 36, is from Menlo Park, California. Xiang, 30, is from Jersey City, New Jersey. Chai is ready to seem in federal courtroom in Northern California, whereas Xiang is scheduled to seem earlier than a federal Justice of the Peace decide in New York.
US Attorney Jamie McDonald said,
“Misappropriating confidential data to commerce within the derivatives markets for private profit is unlawful. That is strictly what we allege Hefu Chai and Huaisong Xiang have achieved. Today’s fees clarify that company insiders can not evade the securities and commodities legal guidelines by buying and selling based mostly on misappropriated data in derivatives like perpetual futures, tokenized securities, or different related monetary devices.”
Jane Street’s $192M Exit
The allegations additionally convey one other related high-profile case again into focus.
Earlier this yr, Jane Street Group faced allegations over its buying and selling exercise across the collapse of TerraUSD (UST) in May 2022. New York prosecutors accused the main Wall Street buying and selling agency of utilizing a non-public Telegram channel to speak with insiders at Terraform Labs, the corporate behind UST.
Prosecutors alleged that the entry gave Jane Street an early view of what was taking place across the stablecoin. The agency was then accused of promoting about $192 million price of UST earlier than the token collapsed.
The put up Robinhood Engineers Charged After Allegedly Trading Crypto on Secret Listing Information appeared first on CryptoPotato.
