Kraken’s parent company, Payward, throws a hardball: it plans to offer Hyperliquid on-chain perpetuals to US customers—and to do so through a CFTC-licensed structure, not just a “compliance narrative” in words.
The details are worth breaking down: it first moves in via the HIP-3 permissioned market. Bitnomial Exchange (DCM) acts as the deployer, responsible for creating, managing, and settling/clearing; NinjaTrader Clearing (FCM) opens the account and holds the positions. Matching and bookkeeping remain on Hyperliquid’s public chain order book, but the regulatory obligations fall on Bitnomial and NinjaTrader—meaning it does not equal the existing Hyperliquid order book being opened directly to Americans.
Payward acquired NinjaTrader Clearing with about $1.5 billion in 2025, and then in May 2026 it will acquire Bitnomial for about $550 million. This time, it’s about stuffing hot offshore/onchain products into US-registered structures. The launch date, fees, the underlying assets, and the revenue split on the $HYPE side have not been disclosed. Intention ≠ launch.
My judgment: What’s worth watching is whether the U.S. registered exchanges can truly roll out HIP-3—not yet another round of hype-driven calls.
Source: CoinDesk (paraphrasing Payward’s official position) + Payward/AFP press release.
Not investment advice.