The timing schedule for listings on Robinhood is confidential; when it’s moved to Hyperliquid perpetuals, it becomes evidence in the hands of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

The SDNY indicted two former Robinhood engineers, Hefu Chai and Huaisong “Jerry” Xiang. The charges are commodities fraud and wire fraud (indicted Tuesday; as reported by Cointelegraph/DOJ complaint). Prosecutors allege that the two were labeled as Coin Aware Individuals—meaning they could access an internal Slack channel containing planned listing dates. Company policy prohibited this group from trading on any platform within 24 hours before and after announcements; however, they are accused of opening long positions in related perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid before the announcement, then closing afterward for profits. Chai (roughly 2021–May 2026; head of listing technology) did this at least about 10 times; Xiang (roughly 2024–Sep 2026) also at least about 10 times. Their profits are alleged to exceed $50,000 each. The assets involved include both Meme tokens and mainstream listing targets, as well as $HYPE and others.

What’s worth watching is the framework, not the gossip. In court, the prosecution cited (the Commodity Exchange Act); in substance, the U.S. prosecutor Jamie McDonald said: you can’t use tools like perpetuals or tokenized securities to get around the fact that the information is inside information. A difference in information that just shifts you to another market may not change the boundary of responsibility.

At this stage, it’s still allegations—there is a presumption of innocence. For commodities fraud, the maximum is about 10 years; for wire fraud, about 20 years. This does not constitute investment advice.

#Robinhood #Hyperliquid #监管 #币圈 #compliance