Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, said on Wednesday that it plans to deploy onchain perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid for eligible United States clients, using a permissioned extension of the decentralized platform’s builder-deployed contract framework.
The company did not name a launch date, and a spokesperson declined to comment on timing or on any discussions with regulators. Contracts, if approved, would be listed under the rules of a CFTC-regulated exchange. Payward’s release states that onchain perpetual futures would be listed under the rules of Bitnomial Exchange, LLC, subject to regulatory approval.
The statement confirms reporting first published by Bloomberg on August 31, which said the two sides were structuring a US route through Payward’s CFTC-licensed subsidiary Bitnomial. The Crypto Times covered those talks at the time.
How the proposed structure would work
According to Payward’s release, the markets would run on Hyperliquid’s public blockchain, where the onchain order book matches and records trades. Bitnomial would act as the HIP-3 deployer, meaning Bitnomial Exchange, LLC, a CFTC-designated contract market (DCM), and Bitnomial Clearinghouse, LLC, a CFTC-registered derivatives clearing organization (DCO), would create, own, and administer the market and clear and settle the contracts.
NinjaTrader Clearing, LLC, Payward’s CFTC-registered futures commission merchant (FCM), would carry client accounts. Only accounts onboarded by NinjaTrader and placed on both NinjaTrader’s and Bitnomial’s onchain allowlists would be able to trade.
Jon Pham, Head of US Derivatives at Payward, said in the release that a US client would open a futures account with Payward’s registered broker and trade the new contracts on Hyperliquid, cleared through the same clearinghouse that already supports Payward’s existing US crypto perpetual contracts.
Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward, said no registered US exchange or clearinghouse has yet deployed a market on Hyperliquid and that Payward intends to be the first, “holding the keys and carrying the regulatory obligations.” Calvin Leyon, Kraken’s Head of Onchain, described the plan as pairing Hyperliquid’s protocol with Payward’s infrastructure and regulatory stack.
Leyon also said in the same release that the framework is intended to be replicable across products and markets; that is company commentary, not an independent finding.
HIP-3* and what existing markets look like
The arrangement is permissioned. It uses HIP-3*, an optional extension of Hyperliquid’s builder-deployed perpetuals framework that allows a deployer to maintain onchain allowlists. Existing permissionless HIP-3 markets would not change.
Hyperliquid co-founder Jeffrey Yan described HIP-3* in early September as additive and deployer-controlled; the Crypto Times reported on that protocol change when it was still in preliminary form on testnet.
Under the current rules of the framework, HIP-3 deployers on mainnet stake 500,000 HYPE, Hyperliquid’s native token, to launch a perp DEX. Payward’s statement does not specify how that staking requirement would apply to a CFTC-registered deployer.
What US traders would and would not get
This is not access to Hyperliquid’s existing retail application, which remains unavailable to US users. As earlier reporting on the talks described, US access would be limited to a subset of crypto-linked perpetual futures routed through Bitnomial under US rules, with identity checks and a limited menu.
The exotic HIP-3 markets that have appeared offshore, such as commodities and pre-IPO names, and the leverage available on the offshore venue, sit outside the structure described in August. No fee-sharing arrangement with Hyperliquid’s HYPE buyback mechanism has been disclosed.
Payward already offers CFTC-regulated perpetual futures to eligible US clients on Kraken Pro through Bitnomial. Those products went live on June 15, 2026, after Payward closed its acquisition of Bitnomial on May 1 for up to $550 million, a deal that handed it a full CFTC-licensed stack covering exchange, clearing, and brokerage. The Hyperliquid plan would sit alongside that existing book, not replace it.
Regulatory path remains open
Bloomberg reported on August 31 that Payward had already presented an outline of a Bitnomial structure to the CFTC. Wednesday’s statement does not say whether that filing has advanced. Ashley Ebersole, a former senior counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), told CoinCentral around the time of the initial talks that a review of this type could take at least 10 to 12 months even if the process moved quickly.
The backdrop also includes a separate legal dispute in which CME Group has challenged CFTC treatment of perpetual-style products, arguing some contracts should be treated as swaps. That case is part of the environment for onshore perpetuals, not a ruling on this specific deployment.
President Donald Trump said in August that US regulators were working to bring Hyperliquid into the country in a compliant way. That remark preceded the Bloomberg scoop on the Payward talks. It is a political signal, not an approval.
Token and company valuation context
HYPE, Hyperliquid’s native token, was trading around $77 to $79 on Wednesday depending on the venue, with circulating-supply market-cap prints clustered near $17 billion to $20 billion. Maximum supply is 1 billion HYPE; circulating supply estimates on Wednesday clustered near 220 million to 250 million HYPE, not “just under 1 billion.”
The token set an all-time high near $89.57 on September 6 and has pulled back since. Price data moves quickly and differs by source; CoinMarketCap, exchange feeds, and CoinGecko should be checked for the latest print.
Payward is private and has no public stock ticker. A November 2025 funding round was marked at about $20 billion post-money. Nasdaq Ventures announced an agreement to invest $100 million on September 10; subsequent reporting put that mark near $21 billion.
Secondary and private-market references since then have diverged. Forge has published a derived share price near $33. Nasdaq Ventures announced a $100 million investment on September 10 tied to Payward’s tokenized-equities work.
Payward confidentially filed a draft S-1 with the SEC in November 2025, later paused the listing, and has been described as targeting an initial public offering (IPO) no earlier than the second quarter of 2027. Those marks are not a listed price and should not be treated as one.
What remains unknown
Payward did not name the first contracts, leverage limits, margin rules, or whether any revenue would accrue to HYPE stakers or Hyperliquid’s fee engine. It did not say how many markets would launch first, or how the 500,000 HYPE HIP-3 deployer stake would apply to a CFTC-registered deployer. Hyperliquid Labs did not issue a parallel statement alongside the Payward release.
The announcement is a statement of intent, not a live listing. Trading would depend on CFTC clearance, product filings under Bitnomial’s rulebook, and client eligibility. No contracts are available under this structure today.
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