Hyperliquid said on Monday 26 October that Payward, the parent company of the Kraken exchange, intends to become the first CFTC-regulated deployer on HIP-3, the framework that lets outside firms run their own perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid’s onchain order book. The deployer would be Bitnomial, the US derivatives exchange and clearing house Payward owns, and the markets would be open to US clients only. Nothing in the plan has been approved: both Hyperliquid and Payward say the deployment is subject to regulatory approval, and no launch date has been given.
The announcement came in a post on X from the @HyperliquidX account. “Payward will use Hyperliquid as the infrastructure layer to deploy perpetual futures markets for US clients,” the post reads. The Block reported the post at 18:21 UTC the same day and said it had asked Payward for comment; no reply appeared in its article.
The Hyperliquid Kraken link is not new. Payward first set the plan out on 16 September. What Monday added is a named role, “first CFTC-regulated deployer”, and a software change on Hyperliquid’s side: HIP-3 deployers can now limit who trades their markets through onchain allowlists. That feature runs on testnet for now. The Block noted that it is still unclear how the permissioning would work in practice, including whether a market deployed by Payward would carry built-in identity (KYC) checks.
Hyperliquid, as quoted by The Block, described itself as a “neutral infrastructure layer with the goal of supporting large parts of the financial system.” The Block added that HIP-3 deployers keep control of, and responsibility for, their own markets. For a regulator that division is the point: the protocol presents itself as plumbing, and the licensed firm on top answers for what happens.
It is the second Hyperliquid move aimed at Washington this month. On 19 October, Hyperliquid’s policy arm asked the SEC for five changes to its proposed crypto rules.
What is approved in the Hyperliquid Kraken plan, and what is not
The licences exist today. The product does not. Bitnomial Exchange is a CFTC-designated contract market, Bitnomial Clearinghouse is a registered derivatives clearing organization, and NinjaTrader Clearing is a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant and a member of the National Futures Association (NFA), according to Payward. All three already hold those registrations.
The HIP-3 markets themselves are a different matter. Payward’s release says the perpetual futures would be listed under Bitnomial Exchange’s rules “subject to regulatory approval”, and The Block wrote that NinjaTrader would carry client accounts only “if approved”. None of the coverage reviewed for this article reports any statement from the CFTC on the plan.
| Piece of the plan | Status on 27 October 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Bitnomial Exchange, CFTC-designated contract market | Registered and operating | Payward, 16 Sep |
| Bitnomial Clearinghouse, derivatives clearing organization | Registered; would clear and settle the HIP-3 contracts if approved | Payward, 16 Sep |
| NinjaTrader Clearing, futures commission merchant and NFA member | Registered; would carry accounts for these markets only if approved | Payward; The Block, 26 Oct |
| HIP-3 onchain allowlists | Released on testnet, not on mainnet | The Block, 26 Oct |
| Payward HIP-3 perpetual markets for US clients | Not approved; listing subject to regulatory approval | Payward; Hyperliquid; The Block |
| Underlying assets, start date, leverage, margin, position limits | Not disclosed | Finance Magnates, 16 Sep |
| Public CFTC position on the plan | None reported | The Block, 26 Oct; Finance Magnates |
Both sides also use the language of intent. Hyperliquid says Payward intends to be first; Payward’s co-CEO Arjun Sethi put it the same way in September: “Payward intends to be the first, holding the keys and carrying the regulatory obligations.”
How Payward’s structure would work: Bitnomial deploys, NinjaTrader onboards
The fullest description is still Payward’s press release of 16 September, dated from Cheyenne, Wyoming. The markets would run on Hyperliquid’s public blockchain, where its onchain order book matches and records the trades. Everything around the trade would sit inside Payward’s regulated group.
Bitnomial Exchange, LLC would be the HIP-3 deployer: it would create, own and administer the markets. Bitnomial Clearinghouse, LLC would clear and settle the contracts. NinjaTrader Clearing, LLC would hold the client accounts. “Those entities hold the regulatory obligations,” the release says.
Access would be closed by design. Only accounts onboarded by NinjaTrader, and listed on both NinjaTrader’s and Bitnomial’s allowlists, could trade. “A US client would open a futures account with Payward’s registered broker,” said Jon Pham, Payward’s head of US derivatives, in the release, adding that the new contracts would clear through the clearing house that already supports Payward’s US crypto perpetuals. The allowlist feature Hyperliquid put on testnet on Monday is the technical piece that would let Bitnomial enforce that rule on the chain itself.
None of this opens the markets already trading on Hyperliquid to Americans. US clients would get new contracts that Bitnomial creates and owns, listed under its rulebook, with Hyperliquid supplying the order book underneath. Payward calls Hyperliquid the first protocol in a wider plan and says partners already run their own products on Payward Services. Calvin Leyon, Kraken’s head of onchain, called it a framework “we believe can be replicated across products and markets globally.”
From a Bloomberg report to a named deployer in eight weeks
The groundwork started earlier in the year. Payward bought Bitnomial in a deal The Block put at up to $550 million, which gave the Kraken parent a US derivatives exchange, clearing house and brokerage under CFTC rules; the agreement was announced in April, and Finance Magnates reported that the acquisition closed in May. “We already list our own US perpetuals,” Sethi said in the September release.
The dates since then, from the sources cited here:
- In May 2026, the CFTC cleared KalshiEX and Coinbase to list crypto perpetual futures, The Block reported.
- In mid-August, President Donald Trump said CFTC Chair Michael Selig was working to bring Hyperliquid into the US in a “fully compliant and legal fashion”, and on 24 August the Hyperliquid Policy Center urged the SEC and the CFTC to harmonise their treatment of perpetual contracts, according to The Block.
- On 31 August, Bloomberg reported that Payward had already pitched the structure to the CFTC and that final approval was pending; a Kraken spokesperson declined to comment, according to The Block.
- On 16 September, Payward published its plan, naming Bitnomial as deployer and NinjaTrader Clearing as broker.
- On 30 September, the Hyperliquid Policy Center told the European Commission that perps should be treated as derivatives under MiFID II, using HIP-3 as an example of a market a regulated firm could restrict with an onchain allowlist.
- On 26 October, Hyperliquid named Payward as its intended first CFTC-regulated deployer and released allowlists on testnet.
HIP-3 explained: markets that someone else runs on Hyperliquid
Perpetual futures are futures contracts with no expiry date, kept close to the spot price by periodic funding payments between long and short traders. They have traded outside the US since 2016, and more than $85 trillion changed hands on them worldwide in 2025, according to the CoinGecko report Payward cites.
Hyperliquid, live since 2023, runs a perpetuals exchange directly on its own blockchain, with an order book that is fully onchain. CoinGecko ranked it the most active onchain perps venue of 2025, and DefiLlama data cited by Payward put its volume above $200 billion over the 30 days before 16 September.
HIP-3 is the upgrade that lets third parties, called deployers, launch their own perpetual markets on that infrastructure. The deployer sets up the market and answers for it; Hyperliquid provides the matching engine and the chain. Other firms already build on Hyperliquid in their own ways: Ripple Prime prices swaps off Hyperliquid, and Pump.fun routes Hyperliquid perps through its app with no US users. Payward’s version differs because the deployer would be a CFTC-regulated exchange.
What a US trader would get, and what they would not
If regulators sign off, a US client would open a futures account with NinjaTrader, pass its onboarding, and trade contracts listed by Bitnomial and cleared by Bitnomial Clearinghouse, with the order matched on Hyperliquid. The account is regulated; the trade is recorded on a public chain.
The release describes a brokered futures account, not a wallet the trader controls and connects to Hyperliquid’s app. Sethi’s own phrase is that Payward would be “holding the keys”. Nor would they get every market on Hyperliquid, only the ones Bitnomial lists. For readers comparing venues, our Kraken review covers the exchange’s current products and fees.
For now, nothing changes for anyone. The markets are not live, and no date has been given.
What is still unknown: approval, timing and the KYC design
The biggest gap is time. No regulator has published a schedule. In August, Ashley Ebersole, a former SEC senior counsel, said the process could take at least 10 to 12 months, “assuming things went quickly”, as The Block reported. That estimate was given before Payward published its plan and is one lawyer’s view, not an official timeline.
The product details are open too. Payward has not said which assets the first markets would track, when trading would start, or what leverage, margin and position limits would apply. Collateral and funding mechanics are unspecified too, Finance Magnates noted.
Then there is the allowlist itself. It is on testnet, and The Block could not say whether a Payward market would check identity on the chain or rely on NinjaTrader’s onboarding off it. Payward also claims no registered US exchange or clearing house has deployed a market on Hyperliquid before, a claim Finance Magnates flagged as Payward’s own.
No route for readers in France, Italy or the rest of Europe
The plan is for US clients only. Readers in the EU cannot use it, and nothing in Payward’s release mentions Europe. Kraken serves European clients under its own licensed set-up, including the Unified Wallet it brought to the EEA last week.
The European debate runs on a separate track. In its letter to the Commission’s MiCA review, signed by CEO Jake Chervinsky, the Hyperliquid Policy Center argued that perps are derivatives under MiFID II and that a regulated firm could “offer that market to its clients as a regulated product”, The Block reported on 1 October. We found no statement from France’s AMF or Italy’s Consob on HIP-3 or on the Payward plan.
What to watch next
The first sign to look for is technical: allowlists leaving testnet for Hyperliquid’s mainnet. The regulatory one would be a filing or public word from the CFTC on Bitnomial listing HIP-3 contracts. After that, Payward would have to name its first markets and publish their contract terms. Payward had not commented on Monday’s post when The Block published.