Kraken Finds the Compliant Route Trump Promised for Hyperliquid in the US

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, plans to deploy onchain perpetual futures for United States clients, starting with markets built on Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 framework, the protocol’s first builder-deployed permissioned markets.

Bitnomial, the exchange regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that Payward acquired last April, would deploy and clear the new markets. NinjaTrader Clearing, a registered futures broker, would onboard client accounts.

A Regulatory Route, Not a New Rulebook

Hyperliquid processed more than $200 billion in trading volume over the past 30 days. That scale makes it the busiest onchain derivatives venue in the world, yet it remains officially closed to US traders.

Multiple platforms already run builder-deployed markets on Hyperliquid, and one holds 98% of that open interest. None of them is a registered US exchange or clearinghouse, which is the gap Payward says its structure closes.

That gap is also what Kraken’s earlier Hyperliquid entry plan aimed to close last month. It built on President Trump’s August comments that the CFTC was working toward a compliant path for the exchange.

Payward already lists its own crypto perpetual futures for US clients through the same clearing setup. It acquired Bitnomial last April for $550 million, giving it in-house CFTC infrastructure rather than a third party’s.

“Payward intends to be the first, holding the keys and carrying the regulatory obligations”
Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward

Compliance Still an Open Question

The plan still needs regulatory approval, and no launch date has been set. It also arrives shortly after North Korea-linked wallet activity drew scrutiny to Hyperliquid’s compliance record.

Whether Bitnomial’s structure satisfies regulators may decide how quickly Hyperliquid reaches US traders, not how loudly the plan is announced.

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