Hyperliquid is in talks with Payward, Kraken’s parent company, to funnel its perpetual futures to US traders via the CFTC-licensed Bitnomial exchange. Bloomberg reported the discussions Monday. The structure would hand the offshore derivatives venue its first regulated foothold in the United States.
Payward subsidiary Bitnomial would offer registered US users a slice of crypto perpetual futures tied to markets on Hyperliquid’s decentralized exchange and its Layer 1 blockchain, according to The Block. US customers shut out of Hyperliquid’s permissionless platform would, in practice, reach part of its perps market through a regulated intermediary. Payward has already walked the CFTC through an outline of the structure and is awaiting final approval, Decrypt reported. Monetary terms were not known.
Here’s why that matters. Payward picked up Bitnomial earlier this year for up to $550 million, gaining a CFTC-licensed US derivatives stack that covers exchange, clearing and brokerage. Hyperliquid, by contrast, is decentralized. It handles more than $4 billion in daily volume with no central operator, a permissionless design that regulators say can leave venues open to manipulation and other criminal activity. Bitnomial supplies the operator and the oversight the existing framework demands.
Singapore-based Hyperliquid Labs has kept its platform off-limits to American customers. A deal would mark its first push into the US market. It could also offer a template for how other offshore, unregistered venues might come onshore.
The talks follow remarks by President Donald Trump earlier this month that his administration was working to bring Hyperliquid onshore. Trump told a White House gathering that CFTC Chairman Michael Selig was seeking a path to bring the platform into the US in a “fully compliant and legal fashion.” HYPE, the platform’s native token, jumped sharply on the comments.
A Kraken spokesperson declined to comment. Representatives for Payward and Hyperliquid Labs also declined to comment to Bloomberg.
The discussions arrive as the SEC and CFTC push ahead on rules that could pull offshore perpetual futures trading back onto domestic platforms. The Clarity Act market-structure bill sits in summer recess limbo. The agencies are moving on rulemaking for the $2.5 trillion crypto industry regardless. In June, the SEC and CFTC asked for public input on how swaps, security-based swaps and novel products should be defined, and where each agency’s jurisdiction should begin and end.
A bipartisan group of former SEC and CFTC officials filed a comment letter arguing that similar risks should face similar regulatory treatment and that overlapping rules should not pile on compliance costs. Signatories include former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo, former CFTC Commissioners Brian Quintenz and Sharon Brown-Hruska, former SEC Commissioner Steven Wallman, and former SEC Chief Economist Chester Spatt. Prediction-market platform Kalshi, which began offering crypto perps earlier this year, sponsored the letter. Signatories say they were not compensated and Kalshi had no say over the contents.
“The $90 trillion offshore perpetuals market isn’t a mystery to solve, it’s a market waiting for a sensible US rulebook,” Giancarlo told Crypto In America. “If we calibrate federal regulation to actual risk instead of maximum burden, that liquidity comes onshore. Every year we wait, it gets harder to bring to America.”
Kalshi estimates offshore perpetuals trading topped $90 trillion in 2025. Two years earlier, the figure stood around $28 trillion. That part is new.
Ashley Ebersole, a former SEC senior counsel now serving as co-founder and chief legal officer at real-world assets platform tx, told The Block in an interview that both the SEC and the CFTC may need to be involved in writing revised interpretive rules covering custody and mechanics around current routing standards. The process could take at least 10 to 12 months, she said, “assuming things went quickly.”
A CFTC spokesperson told The Block: “If the United States fails to keep pace with rapid advances in trading and markets, we risk ceding our reputation as the global hub of financial innovation. Under Chairman Selig’s leadership, the CFTC is committed to promoting fair access and responsible innovation so that the next generation of our financial markets are built here in America and not overseas.”
In May, the CFTC greenlighted KalshiEX and Coinbase to list crypto perpetual futures. June brought a request for comment on crude oil perpetual contracts and 24/7 trading. The SEC separately sent a planned rewrite of its custody rules for investment advisers and investment companies to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review last week, and its “Reg Crypto” proposal is open for public comment until October 20, 2026.
Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token was trading up 1.3% over the past 24 hours to $84.25, according to The Block, after reaching an all-time high just above $86 the prior week. HYPE has gained over 85% over the past year.
