Payward Wants to Put US-Regulated Perpetual Futures on Hyperliquid

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, is proposing to bring US-regulated perpetual futures to Hyperliquid's on-chain order book. Under the plan, Hyperliquid would supply the blockchain and order-book infrastructure, while access, clearing and administration would remain with Payward's regulated subsidiaries — Bitnomial and NinjaTrader. The initiative remains subject to regulatory approval, and Payward has not disclosed a launch date or contract specifications.

The company intends to start with Hyperliquid's HIP-3 framework, which normally lets third-party deployers create and operate perpetual markets, taking responsibility for contract specifications, price oracles, leverage limits, settlement, open-interest caps and halting trading. Payward's version would hand those controls to regulated entities, producing a permissioned structure: only accounts onboarded by NinjaTrader and listed on both NinjaTrader's and Bitnomial's allowlists could trade.

Regulated Wrappers, Public Infrastructure

Bitnomial Exchange, a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-designated contract market, would act as the HIP-3 deployer — creating, owning and administering the markets. Bitnomial Clearinghouse, a registered derivatives clearing organisation, would handle settlements, while NinjaTrader Clearing, a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant and NFA member, would open and maintain customer accounts. The arrangement would not make Hyperliquid itself a regulated US exchange; the regulatory obligations sit with the Payward entities, with the protocol serving as the execution and blockchain-recording layer.

Payward closed its acquisition of Bitnomial in May, adding the exchange, clearinghouse and brokerage registrations to its US derivatives business. It has since rolled out regulated perpetual futures for American customers through Kraken Derivatives US, listed on Bitnomial and accessed via Kraken Pro. That existing lineup already covers perpetual contracts on Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP and other crypto assets, so the Hyperliquid proposal would change the trading venue rather than introduce Payward's first US perpetuals.

Payward described Hyperliquid as the first protocol in a planned multi-protocol strategy and said no registered US exchange or clearinghouse has previously deployed a market on the network — a claim attributed to the company. Several details remain open, including which underlying assets would be offered, whether the markets would tap existing Hyperliquid liquidity, and the leverage, collateral, margin, funding and position-limit parameters. Any products that move forward would be listed under Bitnomial Exchange rules rather than offered through Hyperliquid's unrestricted interface.