As of Oct. 28, Payward’s Hyperliquid Perpetuals Plan Awaits Clearance

Payward’s planned U.S. perpetuals product using Hyperliquid infrastructure still required specific regulatory approval as of Oct. 28, and the companies had announced no launch date for eligible customers.

Payward, Kraken’s parent, announced Sept. 16 that it planned to use Hyperliquid to offer on-chain perpetual contracts to U.S. customers. The proposed arrangement divides responsibilities between Hyperliquid’s infrastructure and firms handling markets, clearing and customer accounts. Hyperliquid would supply its blockchain and on-chain order book. Bitnomial’s exchange and clearing entities would create and manage the markets and handle contract clearing and settlement, while NinjaTrader Clearing would hold customer accounts. Payward already offers its own perpetual contracts to U.S. customers; the plan would add Hyperliquid’s infrastructure to that lineup.

Customers would need to open a NinjaTrader account and qualify for admission to both NinjaTrader’s and Bitnomial’s eligibility lists before trading. The product is meant for eligible U.S. customers, not access to the entire Hyperliquid platform in the United States. The companies have not announced a complete list of contracts.

Hyperliquid is testing an optional HIP-3* feature that lets market deployers maintain on-chain eligibility lists. Deployers can use those lists to determine which accounts may access a market, connecting the result of customer screening to on-chain permissions. The initial version is running on testnet, and production support depends on a later network upgrade. Deployers can choose whether to enable the feature, and existing markets would remain unchanged.

An eligibility list controls account access, while customer screening, contract rules, clearing and other regulatory duties remain with the operators. The plan assigns market creation and clearing to Bitnomial’s exchange and clearing entities and customer accounts to NinjaTrader Clearing. The arrangement spells out the operating structure behind the U.S. market path discussed in earlier coverage of Hyperliquid’s access to U.S. markets.

As of Oct. 28, no launch date had been announced, and Payward’s arrangement still needed specific regulatory approval. Separately, on Oct. 5, the CFTC issued a notice seeking comment on possible rules for certain retail transactions in crypto-asset commodities and a potential registration category for crypto-asset markets. No new rules had taken effect as of Oct. 28. Comments are due Dec. 14.