Hyperliquid’s U.S. Perps Would Trade on Bitnomial’s Books

Hyperliquid Labs and Payward are in advanced talks to put selected crypto perpetual futures in front of U.S. traders on Bitnomial. Any deal still needs Commodity Futures Trading Commission approval before an American account can buy.

Those contracts would list on a registered venue U.S. clients already use for bitcoin and ether perps, while Hyperliquid’s own decentralized book stayed closed to them.

Bitnomial Would Be the American Front Door

The structure on the table is narrow. Eligible, registered Bitnomial users would trade a limited group of futures linked to tokens built with Hyperliquid technology. They would not receive open access to Hyperliquid’s existing platform, which still does not serve U.S. customers.

Payward, the parent of Kraken, has already walked the CFTC through that outline. The agency has not commented on these specific talks. Hyperliquid processes more than $4 billion in daily volume, and that flow still sits offshore.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The venue: Bitnomial, a Payward subsidiary, would list the U.S. contracts and supply the compliance wrapper.
• The product: A selected set of Hyperliquid-linked perpetual futures, not the full decentralized book.
• The gate: Trading cannot start until regulators approve the arrangement.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A signed deal: The talks are advanced, and terms have not been disclosed.
• The menu: Which tokens, leverage limits, and collateral rules would make the first list is still open.
• The plumbing: Whether U.S. orders would share Hyperliquid’s global book, and how fees would split, has not been set out.

That gap is the design, not a footnote. Hyperliquid keeps operating as a geoblocked protocol. Payward keeps the licensed exchange, the clearinghouse, and the customer file.

Nine Perps Already Trade on Kraken Pro

U.S. traders do not need this deal to touch a crypto perpetual. On June 15, 2026, Kraken turned on CFTC-regulated US perpetual futures for eligible clients on Kraken Pro, listed on Bitnomial and cleared through NinjaTrader Clearing, LLC, doing business as Kraken Derivatives US.

The live names at launch were BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, DOGE, LTC, and AVAX. Funding prints every eight hours at 7:00 p.m., 3:00 a.m., and 11:00 a.m. CT, the same cadence offshore desks have used for years. Kraken said the global perpetual market topped $60 trillion in volume in 2025.

Darius Tabatabai, head of Kraken Pro, said Bitnomial’s regulated systems are what made that launch possible in short order, and that perpetuals now share one interface with spot, margin, and CME-listed futures. The Hyperliquid talks would add names to that same pipe. They would not invent the pipe.

WHERE THE U.S. BOOK WOULD LIVE

A wallet-connected, anything-goes session stays on the other side of that geoblock. America would get the price feed and a middleman, which is why the brand rally and the product are not the same object.

What HIP-3 Markets Would Stay Offshore?

Hyperliquid’s growth this year has not only been bitcoin and ether. HIP-3, the protocol’s builder-deployed perpetual rules, lets an outside team list its own markets on HyperCore after posting a 500,000 HYPE staking requirement that must stay in place for at least 183 days.

Those builder books already carry U.S. stock perps, commodity contracts, index products, and pre-IPO names that no CFTC crypto list currently mirrors. The first three assets on a new HIP-3 venue skip the listing auction; extra names go through a shared Dutch auction. Deployers set the oracle and the leverage caps. Validators can slash the stake if the market is run badly.

MARKETS THAT STAY ON HIP-3

• Single-stock perps: Builder venues have listed names such as Nvidia, Tesla, Apple, and Amazon on HyperCore.
• Commodities and indexes: Gold, silver, and oil-style contracts trade beside synthetic index products on the same engine.
• Pre-IPO names: Separate deployers have offered perpetual exposure to private-company valuations that U.S. futures pits do not list.
• Other Hyperliquid products: The same permissionless listing logic now extends to permissionless Hyperliquid prediction markets, which also would not arrive with a Bitnomial login.

A selected crypto list at Bitnomial does not pull that catalog onshore. Energy-linked Hyperliquid markets have already had their own U.S. energy perpetual futures path in front of the CFTC, and those fights sit in a different docket from a handful of token perps on Kraken Pro.

Trump Put Selig’s Hyperliquid Work on Camera

On Aug. 19, President Donald Trump put the platform on a White House stage. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig was standing next to him. Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi was among the executives in the room.

I understand that Mike is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion. Working very hard on that.

Donald Trump, President, White House, Aug. 19, 2026

HYPE jumped the same day, with prints moving from the high $50s toward $70 as traders treated the line as an onshore green light. The CFTC had already met Hyperliquid Labs in mid-July. Political reporting later in August said the agency had asked for the shout-out to show it wanted crypto firms onshore.

Trump described bringing the platform in. The talks now on the table bring a slice of its contracts, through someone else’s license. That is the compliant fashion on offer, and it is much smaller than the sentence that moved the token.

Who Would Hold the U.S. Customer File?

Payward closed its Bitnomial purchase on May 1, after announcing the deal on April 17. The buy gave the group a broker, an exchange, and a clearinghouse purpose-built for digital assets, the FCM, DCM and DCO licenses required to run a full U.S. derivatives stack.

That stack is what makes the next set of products possible. We’re starting with spot margin on Kraken, with perpetuals and options to follow. All under CFTC regulation, all in the US.

Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, Payward statement, May 1, 2026

Perpetuals did follow, in June, without Hyperliquid. The new talks would let Payward rent Hyperliquid’s brand and, perhaps, its matching tech, without Hyperliquid registering as a U.S. exchange. Kraken keeps distribution on Kraken Pro. Bitnomial keeps listing and clearing. Hyperliquid stays the offshore engine.

The open commercial question is the fee. If U.S. flow pays Bitnomial and NinjaTrader Clearing, HYPE holders need a documented cut before a listing party shows up in the token. Testers have already described Kraken running HIP-3 style flows on a testnet, which fits a licensed front end on Hyperliquid rails more than it fits opening the geoblocked app.

HYPE’s Climb Prices a Curated Menu

When the talks surfaced, HYPE printed $84.16, up more than 4% on the day after a weaker open, and about 63% above where it started August. That move bundled Trump’s August remark, the Bitnomial wrapper, and a hope that U.S. flow would finally touch the token’s venue.

HYPE AND THE BOOK AT PRESS TIME

• HYPE print: $84.16 as the talks became public, after a 4% bounce inside the session.
• August move: About 63% from the start of the month, before any CFTC order on this structure.
• Hyperliquid volume: More than $4 billion a day, still blocked for U.S. users.
• Builder stake: 500,000 HYPE to deploy a HIP-3 venue, a cost that does not buy a U.S. license.

A wrapper can still be useful. It can put Hyperliquid-linked names next to bitcoin and ether on a screen U.S. clients already have. It cannot, by itself, import HIP-3 stocks, pre-IPO contracts, or a permissionless onboarding flow. Pricing the token as if the DEX had cleared U.S. customs overstates the paperwork on the table.

The CFTC Still Has to Bless Each Contract

U.S. perps are no longer a blank page. On May 29, 2026, the CFTC approved KalshiEX’s BTCPERP bitcoin contract as a futures product and said similarly built perps on digital commodities with deep, continuous spot markets could follow that path. Chairman Selig called that order a historic action. Perps on other underlyings remain under case-by-case CFTC review.

Bitnomial Exchange, LLC has been a designated contract market since April 17, 2020, and its clearinghouse took a DCO registration in 2023. That history is why Payward bought it, and why Hyperliquid does not have to apply for a DCM from scratch. It is also why each new underlying still needs its own look.

HOW BITNOMIAL BECAME THE U.S. VENUE

1. April 17, 2020: Bitnomial Exchange, LLC is designated as a CFTC contract market.
2. April 17, 2026: Payward agrees to buy Bitnomial and fold the licenses into Kraken and NinjaTrader.
3. May 1, 2026: The acquisition closes; Payward says spot margin comes first, with perps and options to follow.
4. May 29, 2026: The CFTC approves Kalshi’s bitcoin perpetual as a futures contract.
5. June 15, 2026: Kraken lists nine crypto perps on Bitnomial for eligible U.S. clients.
6. August 19, 2026: Trump says Selig is working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion.
7. Late August 2026: Hyperliquid Labs and Payward are described as being in advanced talks on a selected Bitnomial list, with a structure already shown to the CFTC.

Until that review ends, U.S. traders keep the nine names already on Kraken Pro, and Hyperliquid’s book stays on the other side of the geoblock. The token can keep trading the headline. The contract that would actually clear still needs a vote.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of public statements, company materials, and market figures. It is for information only and is not investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or trade HYPE, crypto perpetual futures, or any other product. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser or futures broker, and review CFTC and exchange risk disclosures, before making any trading decision. Prices, volumes, talk status, and regulatory facts reflect the sources as of September 2, 2026, and can change as the CFTC review and the commercial talks move.