Hyperliquid Labs is in advanced talks with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, over a route into the US market, Bloomberg reported Monday. The plan would avoid buying a licensed exchange outright.
Bitnomial, Payward’s US-regulated derivatives exchange and clearinghouse, would let registered American traders reach a subset of crypto perpetual futures tied to Hyperliquid. Payward has already sent the structure to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
What US Traders Would Actually Get
Less than the headlines suggest, as Hyperliquid’s own app stays geoblocked for Americans, and nothing in the reported structure changes that.
Registered users would trade on Bitnomial under US rules, with identity checks and a limited menu. Bloomberg described a subset of crypto perpetual futures, not the full offshore order book.
The exotic markets built through Hyperliquid’s third-party framework, covering commodities and pre-IPO names, sit outside the reported plan. So does the leverage available offshore today.
For traders already using the offshore venue, nothing changes.
Why Hyperliquid Is Renting Instead of Buying
Payward closed its takeover of Bitnomial on May 1, a $550 million deal that delivered three CFTC licenses at once. Prediction market Polymarket instead paid $112 million for a licensed venue of its own.
Renting costs Hyperliquid far less upfront. The trade is control, because Payward would own the licensed venue and the registered customer.
What It Means for HYPE
Being shut out of America has not visibly cost holders. HYPE set a record of $86.71 on August 27 without a single registered US trader on the venue.
Hyperliquid routes 99% of protocol and trading fees into repurchasing HYPE tokens, an engine that has retired $1.3 billion of supply since December 2024. Whether volume cleared on Bitnomial ever reaches that buyback has not been described.
That gap matters more than the headline number. A flat licensing fee and a share of US trading revenue are very different outcomes for the token.
The HYPE price sat at $83.57 on Monday, up 7.1% over the week, after President Donald Trump said on Aug. 19 that regulators were working to bring Hyperliquid onshore. A filing with the CFTC is not a clearance, and both companies declined to comment.
Bitrue