Two Robinhood HOOD$110,21·Рынок закрыт engineers allegedly stole confidential information from their employer to trade perpetual futures on Hyperliquid for personal benefit, according to Jamie McDonald, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
“Misappropriating confidential information to trade in the derivatives markets for personal benefit is illegal,” McDonald said in a statement on Tuesday. “That is exactly what we allege Hefu Chai and Huaisong Xiang have done.”
The case puts trading on decentralized derivatives platforms within the same enforcement framework prosecutors use for other trading based on confidential corporate information. The use of perpetual futures did not shield the alleged trades from commodities and wire-fraud laws, prosecutors said.
McDonald alleges that between 2025 and 2026, Chai, 36, and Xiang, 30, bought perpetual futures linked to crypto tokens on Hyperliquid on several occasions in advance of the trading platform’s public announcements that the underlying assets would be listed on Robinhood Crypto. They each allegedly profited more than $50,000 from the trades, the statement said. If found guilty, they could face up to 10 years in prison.
