Payward Plans Regulated Hyperliquid Perpetual Futures for U.S. Traders

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, plans to give U.S. clients access to onchain perpetual futures through Hyperliquid, pending regulatory approval.

The company said Wednesday that it intends to begin with Hyperliquid HIP-3 markets, which enable third parties to create and manage permissioned perpetual futures markets. The proposed contracts would operate under Bitnomial Exchange rules and fall within a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated framework.

Under the plan, eligible U.S. customers could trade Payward-created perpetual futures on Hyperliquid’s public blockchain. Traders would need approved futures accounts through Payward-owned NinjaTrader Clearing and Bitnomial.

Perpetual futures, or “perps,” allow traders to speculate on the price of an underlying asset without owning it. Unlike conventional futures, these contracts have no expiration date and can remain open indefinitely, with periodic funding payments exchanged between traders.

The product has become a major part of global crypto trading but has largely remained outside regulated U.S. markets. More than $85 trillion in perpetual futures volume was recorded globally in 2025, according to CoinGecko. Hyperliquid’s decentralized exchange accounts for roughly 9% of worldwide open perpetual positions.

Payward’s proposal seeks to combine Hyperliquid’s onchain trading infrastructure with regulated U.S. derivatives services. Hyperliquid’s public blockchain would handle order matching and trade records, while Bitnomial Exchange and Bitnomial Clearinghouse would create, administer, clear and settle the contracts. NinjaTrader Clearing would manage customer futures accounts.

The strategy builds on Payward’s expansion into U.S. derivatives. The company acquired Bitnomial for $550 million in May 2026 after purchasing NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion in 2025.

Payward has not disclosed expected trading volumes, fees, a launch date or details of its financial arrangement with Hyperliquid. The proposed deployment also would not make Hyperliquid’s existing perpetual markets available to U.S. customers.

If approved, the initiative would introduce new CFTC-regulated activity to Hyperliquid while giving Payward another avenue to expand its U.S. crypto derivatives business.