Hyperliquid in Talks With Kraken Parent Payward on US Market Entry

Hyperliquid Labs is in advanced talks with Payward, the parent company of Kraken, to bring its perpetual futures to US traders, Bloomberg reported on August 31, citing people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly. Representatives for both companies declined to comment.

Under the structure being discussed, US-based traders would access a subset of crypto-linked perpetual futures tied to Hyperliquid's blockchain through Bitnomial, the CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse Payward acquired for $550 million in a deal that closed May 1. Payward has already presented the basic structure to the CFTC, according to the report.

Hyperliquid has never served US customers directly. The platform, built as a permissionless, decentralized exchange with no central operator, handles more than $4 billion in daily trading volume, but its lack of a gatekeeper has been the core obstacle to US regulatory approval, with officials citing concerns about market manipulation, money laundering and sanctions evasion on a venue anyone with an internet connection can access. Routing a subset of Hyperliquid-linked contracts through Bitnomial's registered infrastructure would let Payward, not Hyperliquid, serve as the regulated operator and hold the customer relationship, addressing that gap without requiring Hyperliquid to abandon its permissionless design.

The talks follow direct comments from the Trump administration. President Trump said on August 19 that CFTC Chairman Mike Selig was working to bring Hyperliquid into the US in a fully compliant way, and the CFTC has publicly reinforced that direction, telling Bloomberg that failing to keep pace with financial and technological change risks the country's standing as the global hub of financial innovation. The report noted a deal, if it clears regulatory sign-off, could serve as a template for other offshore, unregistered crypto platforms seeking a compliant route into the US market.

The news moved markets on both sides of the trade. HYPE, Hyperliquid's native token, rallied more than 35% on the week and set a fresh all-time high above $86 following the report, pushing its market capitalization into the $17 billion to $21 billion range. Shares of Intercontinental Exchange and Nasdaq, which operate competing derivatives infrastructure, fell 1.3% to 1.5% on the same day.

The proposed structure would not open Hyperliquid's own platform to Americans. Registered US users would trade through Bitnomial under US rules, with identity checks and a limited menu of contracts, a narrower proposition than the exotic markets, including tokenized commodities and pre-IPO equities, that Hyperliquid's broader ecosystem offers offshore. For Payward, the arrangement extends a strategy of building regulated market access through acquired licenses. It closed its Bitnomial purchase in May specifically to secure CFTC licensing, a different approach from rival Polymarket, which paid $112 million for its own licensed derivatives venue rather than partnering with an existing platform.