Hyperliquid, the decentralized perpetuals exchange that processes more than 4 billion USD in daily trading volume without a central operator, is in advanced talks to bring its products to United States traders through a surprising partner: the parent company of rival exchange Kraken.
According to a Bloomberg report published Monday and attributed to people familiar with the matter, Hyperliquid Labs is negotiating with Payward, Kraken’s parent company, to route American customer access to a subset of its crypto-linked perpetual futures through Bitnomial, a United States-regulated digital asset exchange and clearinghouse owned by Payward. Representatives for both Payward and Hyperliquid Labs declined to comment on the discussions.
Why the deal matters
A completed agreement would mark the first push into the US market by the Singapore-based platform, whose high-speed on-chain trading venue has been technically off-limits to American customers since its rise to prominence. But the significance extends well beyond a single venue’s expansion. The structure under discussion could become a template for how other offshore, unregistered derivatives platforms gain lawful entry into the world’s largest capital market.
The core obstacle for Hyperliquid has always been structural rather than commercial. As a fully decentralized platform with no central operator and a permissionless design that lets anyone with access trade, it embodies exactly the architecture that US regulators have long worried could expose markets to manipulation, wash trading, and other abusive practices. Traditional enforcement answers — licensing an operator, auditing a company, punishing a compliance department — simply do not map onto a protocol.
Routing access through Bitnomial’s regulated rails would supply the missing ingredients: a registered intermediary, a clearinghouse subject to oversight, and an entity that regulators can hold accountable. In effect, the decentralized venue would plug into a compliance wrapper rather than rewrite its own architecture.
Regulators already briefed
The talks are further along than a casual exploration. Bloomberg reported that Payward has already presented the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with a proposal outlining the basic structure of the arrangement. Monetary terms of any potential deal were not known, and any final agreement would still require explicit regulatory sign-off before launch.
The timing fits a broader shift in Washington. The reported discussions follow public remarks from President Donald Trump that his administration was working to bring Hyperliquid onshore, an unusual level of specificity for a sitting president discussing a single trading venue. Meanwhile, both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC have spent months signaling that they want offshore perpetual futures volume — a market estimated in the tens of billions of dollars daily — pulled back onto regulated US platforms rather than pushed permanently beyond their reach.
Former enforcement officials have argued that the missing piece for onshore perps is precisely this kind of hybrid structure: regulated intermediaries that can offer the product lawfully while decentralized infrastructure supplies the speed and liquidity traders actually want. A Hyperliquid-Bitnomial deal would be the highest-profile test of that thesis to date.
The competitive irony
There is no small irony in the pairing. Kraken and Hyperliquid compete for many of the same derivatives traders, and centralized exchanges have generally viewed decentralized perps venues as a regulatory-arbitrage threat — venues that could offer Americans precisely what licensed platforms could not. Instead of fighting that dynamic, Payward appears to be positioning to capture it, converting a competitive threat into a distribution channel.
For Hyperliquid, the calculus is straightforward. The US represents one of the largest pools of crypto trading capital in the world, and its exclusion from that market has capped growth even as the platform’s daily volumes rival or exceed those of major centralized exchanges. A regulated on-ramp would unlock that demand without forcing the protocol to compromise its core design.
What happens next
Investors and traders should treat the news as directional rather than definitive. Talks of this kind can stall over liability allocation, fee sharing, or the scope of products offered, and CFTC sign-off on a novel structure involving a decentralized venue is not a formality. The initial arrangement, if completed, would likely cover only a subset of Hyperliquid’s perpetuals rather than the full menu available to non-US traders.
Still, the direction of travel is clear. Regulators want onshore oversight, decentralized venues want US liquidity, and regulated intermediaries want relevance in the fastest-growing corner of crypto trading. A deal that satisfies all three would not just open one exchange to one market — it would sketch the blueprint every offshore platform will study.
For now, neither Payward nor Hyperliquid is confirming anything, and the CFTC is not commenting on a pending proposal. But the fact that a decentralized exchange handling more than 4 billion USD a day is negotiating its American debut through a regulated clearinghouse is itself a landmark: the border between decentralized and traditional finance is being negotiated one deal at a time.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
hyperliquid doing 4b a day volume and now they need krakens parent to hold their hand into the US lol. makes sense but ironic
ironic how? bitnomial is a us regulated clearinghouse, thats literally the only door into the american perps market right now
exactly, bitnomial is the only real door right now. crypto expansion into the US is largely a hunt for the right licensed wrapper
the licensed wrapper hunt is the entire 2026 US strategy. whoever stacks the right paper first sets the tollbooth for everyone else
if this closes, US traders finally get access to real perps liquidity instead of the watered down cme products
the cme products are also cash settled which nobody mentions. actual on-chain perps through a real clearinghouse would be a first for us traders
hyperliquid reaching us traders through krakens parent company was nowhere on my bingo card. rivals partnering because regulation leaves no other door open
^ right? bitnomial is tiny next to 4b daily volume on hype. this is purely a regulatory on-ramp play
its also hyperliquid admitting a permissionless dex cant pass us scrutiny alone. kinda an L for the decentralization pitch if you think about it
eh every dex that wants us flow bends eventually. dydX made the same noises about staying decentralized and look where that went
the dydx comparison doesnt really hold. they built an appchain and stayed offshore. hyperliquid routing through a cftc cleared venue is a completely different animal
the venue size is irrelevant, the license is the product. hyperliquid is basically paying in revenue share for a legal door
regulation leaves no other door is exactly it. coinbase spent years and millions on their us perps push, hyperliquid just rents bitnomials license instead. smart honestly
renting the license is the whole move. hyperliquid built a 4b daily engine offshore with zero compliance staff, buying into bitnomial is way cheaper than hiring 200 lawyers in delaware
and bitnomial gets real flow out of it, its a two way rescue. hyperliquid buys compliance, payward buys relevance for a tiny exchange
payward quietly owning both kraken and bitnomial while cooperating with a rival dex is the real story here. empire building
empire building is the right frame. payward owns the regulated offramp and now partners with the biggest perps venue. everyone needs everyone
if this lands it becomes the template for every offshore perp venue watching from the sidelines. cftc cleared access to on-chain products is a genuinely big deal
template is exactly the right word. every offshore perp venue with a legal team is watching that cftc proposal right now
And every regulator watching knows it. One template deal and the CFTC gets to set terms for the entire offshore perp market at once.
the template part cuts both ways. one bad enforcement action against bitnomial and every copycat deal gets frozen mid negotiation
counterpoint: bitnomial has been clearing futures with the cftc for years. one enforcement case wouldnt void the license, the copycat deals would just wait out the ruling
frozen mid negotiation is fine for the copycats tho, they lose nothing waiting. the pain lands on whichever venue is actually live when enforcement hits
trump publicly naming one dex for an onshore push was the strangest part of this story. once the white house picks a favorite the cftc clock probably moves faster
both sides declining to comment to bloomberg basically confirms the talks are real. september is gonna be loud for perps regulation
on-chain perps through a real clearinghouse means actual margin sitting on chain instead of the cash settled cme workaround. if the plumbing holds this changes what us retail can even trade
This is the part people keep underselling. CME bitcoin futures are cash settled contracts against an index. Actual on-chain perps with real margin would finally give US traders the same tools as everyone else
4b daily volume routed through a clearinghouse that clears a fraction of that. the real question is whether bitnomials infrastructure survives actual us flow on day one
day one would be rough but bitnomial clears through the cftc already, its not some untested venue. spread compression is the thing to watch if this actually launches
funny how the decentralized perps venue ends up needing payward and a cftc clearinghouse to reach us traders. the tech was never the hard part i guess
Funny that the decentralized perps venue doing 4 billion a day needs Payward to answer a CFTC letter. The decentralization here is mostly about who does not hold the keys.
bloomberg sourcing this to people familiar with the matter plus both sides staying quiet, yeah this is happening. payward collecting venues like pokemon cards while everyone argues about decentralization lol
one template deal regulating the offshore perp market is the dream scenario for the CFTC. theyll let hyperliquid come in the front door just to set the precedent
one template is optimistic, more like a patchwork where each license covers a slice. but the cftc wants a perp success story, theyll deal