Payward plans US debut for Hyperliquid perpetual futures

Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, announced on 16 September 2026 plans to offer US clients access to onchain perpetual futures markets. The initiative will start with Hyperliquid HIP-3 markets, which allow third parties to deploy and administer their own permissioned perpetual futures contracts.

Subject to regulatory approval, the contracts would be listed under the rules of Bitnomial Exchange, a designated contract market regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Trade matching and recordkeeping would run on Hyperliquid's public blockchain. Bitnomial Clearinghouse would clear and settle trades, while Payward-owned NinjaTrader Clearing would carry client accounts.

Jon Pham, head of US derivatives, stated that US clients would open a futures account with Payward's registered broker to trade new contracts on Hyperliquid, cleared via the clearinghouse already supporting Payward's existing perpetual offerings. Payward acquired Bitnomial in May for $550 million and NinjaTrader Clearing for $1.5 billion in 2025.

Hyperliquid's decentralized exchange settles roughly 9% of all open perpetual positions worldwide, while global trading in perpetual futures surpassed $85 trillion in 2025. Hyperliquid's revenue fell 43% from the third quarter of 2025 to about $202 million in the second quarter of 2026. The new proposal would not open Hyperliquid's existing markets to US clients, and the companies did not disclose fee schedules, launch dates, or revenue-sharing terms.