Kraken Parent Payward to Build US Perpetual Futures Market on Hyperliquid

Payward's Regulated Perpetuals Plan

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, is preparing to operate a perpetual futures market for US customers on Hyperliquid (HYPE), the decentralized derivatives platform that runs on its own blockchain. Hyperliquid's official X account confirmed the plan on Monday, October 26, stating that Payward intends to use the platform's blockchain infrastructure to build a perpetual futures market operating under US derivatives regulation. Perpetual futures are derivative contracts with no expiry date; periodic funding payments keep their price tied to the underlying asset, and they carry the bulk of global crypto derivatives volume. A regulated American version would open a new route for eligible US investors to trade on-chain derivatives inside a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) framework, rather than on offshore venues that American clients are generally barred from using. The operational split behind the project is already defined. Bitnomial, the derivatives exchange Payward acquired in May in a transaction worth up to $550 million, will launch and run the market, with clearing and settlement processed through a regulated corporate entity. NinjaTrader Clearing, a futures broker registered with the CFTC, will manage customer accounts, the standard structure for a US futures venue where a registered clearing firm safeguards client funds. Two conditions still separate the plan from a live market: approval from the CFTC and delivery of the HIP-3 upgrade Hyperliquid is developing. No launch date, no list of initial contracts and no final trading terms have been published, and neither Hyperliquid nor Payward has said when either gate might clear. For Payward, the project extends the American derivatives business it assembled through the Bitnomial purchase.

The technical centerpiece is HIP-3, an extension Hyperliquid is developing that allows a market operator to set an on-chain allowlist restricting a specific market to permitted users only. In practice, the operator of a HIP-3 market would maintain a list of approved addresses recorded on the blockchain itself, so participation becomes a verifiable on-chain record rather than an off-chain promise. That design is what makes a regulated US market technically feasible on a public blockchain: verified American clients can be scoped to one market while all other users stay outside it. The plan does not alter Hyperliquid's existing markets. The permissioned US venue would be added alongside them, leaving the current global platform unchanged, and US residents would not gain open access to the existing markets under this arrangement; the Payward project is set to operate separately under American derivatives rules. The first implementation is already live on the testnet, Hyperliquid's staging environment for unreleased features, though the company cautioned that detailed specifications may still change before any mainnet release. Hyperliquid's perps stack has been expanding on other fronts as well: NEAR perpetuals on Hyperliquid recently added cross margin across more than 50 markets with leverage of up to 40x. Because NinjaTrader Clearing is registered with the CFTC as a futures broker, it can hold and clear customer positions in a way unregistered offshore operators cannot. For traders unfamiliar with the venue, our guide to trading on Hyperliquid explains how its markets work today. What remains open is the commercial detail: which contracts the US market will list, what order types it will support, and when US regulators clear it to launch.

CFTC and HIP-3 Decide the Timeline

The structure matters more than the timeline in this announcement. Payward has paired a CFTC-regulated wrapper with on-chain execution, and if both gates clear, some US perpetual open interest would sit on a regulated venue for the first time. Execution risk is concentrated in two places: HIP-3 clearing testnet and CFTC sign-off, neither carrying a date. The commercial picture is similarly open, with listed contracts and order types still undecided. Nothing here changes HYPE tokenomics directly. On-chain flows around the token continue independently: a recent whale transfer moved 494,310 HYPE, worth $37.83 million, to Coinbase with no sale confirmed. The recorded state is parties named, structure defined, testnet code live, launch gated.