DOJ Charges Two Former Robinhood Engineers Over Crypto Listing Insider-Trading Scheme

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The U.S. Department of Justice has charged two former Robinhood engineers with fraud for allegedly profiting from nonpublic information related to cryptocurrency listings.

Cointelegraph reported on September 16 that the Justice Department recently charged the two former engineers with fraud and related offenses. The engineers allegedly learned Robinhood's cryptocurrency listing schedule in advance and bought perpetual futures contracts for those tokens on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid (HYPE), generating more than $50,000 each in profit.

According to the Justice Department, the engineers had access to token listing information through internal Robinhood channels. Prosecutors allege they used that information to open long positions on Hyperliquid and then closed them after prices rose following the tokens' listing on Robinhood.

U.S. Attorney Jamie MacDonald said corporate insiders cannot avoid commodities and securities laws by trading on nonpublic information through instruments such as perpetual futures or tokenized securities.