Kraken's Mom Knocks on Hyperliquid's Dorm Room: Perps, Meet America 🇺🇸

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, confirmed Wednesday it plans to offer U.S. clients access to onchain perpetual futures markets through Hyperliquid's HIP-3 builder-deployed permissioned markets, subject to regulatory approval. The contracts would be listed under the rules of Bitnomial Exchange, Payward's CFTC-regulated designated contract market acquired in May for $550 million, with NinjaTrader Clearing — purchased for $1.5 billion in 2025 — carrying approved client accounts. Only allowlisted accounts onboarded through Payward's registered broker could trade on the new markets. "Payward intends to be the first, holding the keys and carrying the regulatory obligations. Our open rails serve clients in more than 190 countries and territories and enable the next protocol, region and product," co-CEO Arjun Sethi said.

Payward has already presented the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with a proposal outlining the basic structure of the arrangement, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. Representatives for Payward and Hyperliquid Labs declined to comment to the outlet. Monetary terms were not disclosed. Bitnomial would create, own and administer the markets and settle the contracts under CFTC oversight, with clients required to open futures accounts with NinjaTrader Clearing and receive approval from both NinjaTrader Clearing and Bitnomial before trading.

The arrangement would mark the first entry into the U.S. market for Singapore-based Hyperliquid Labs, whose decentralized platform has been off-limits to American customers. As a permissionless venue handling more than $4 billion in daily volume, Hyperliquid has no central operator, a structure that has concerned regulators over potential exposure to market manipulation, anti-money laundering controls and sanctions enforcement. Routing access through Bitnomial's regulated infrastructure would provide the registered operator and oversight that framework requires. Hyperliquid's decentralized exchange currently settles roughly 9% of all open perpetual futures positions worldwide.

The talks follow remarks earlier this month from President Donald Trump at a White House gathering, where he said his administration was working to bring Hyperliquid onshore and signaled that CFTC Chairman Michael Selig was seeking a path for the platform. Trump's comments sent the HYPE token sharply higher, and on Wednesday, HYPE price jumped more than 3% within hours, while futures open interest on Binance rose 7% following Payward's announcement. Perpetual futures have largely traded outside U.S. regulated markets since their debut in 2016, with more than $85 trillion changing hands worldwide in 2025 alone, according to CoinGecko's 2026 State of Crypto Perpetuals Report.

Payward has not disclosed a launch date, fees or projected trading volume for the planned markets. The deal could also provide a financial lift for Hyperliquid, whose revenue fell 43% in the third quarter of 2025 to about $202 million in the second quarter of 2026, according to DefiLlama data. "A U.S. client would open a futures account with Payward's registered broker and trade new perpetual futures contracts on Hyperliquid, cleared through the same clearinghouse that already supports the crypto perpetual contracts Payward offers U.S. clients today," said Jon Pham, head of U.S. derivatives at Payward. The initiative lands as the SEC and CFTC press ahead on rules that could pull offshore perpetual futures trading — a market that dwarfs its U.S. counterpart — back onto domestic platforms.