Payward builds permissioned Hyperliquid perpetuals for US users

Payward, Kraken’s parent company, has outlined a plan to give eligible U.S. users regulated access to a limited set of perpetual futures on Hyperliquid through a permissioned market structure rather than opening the blockchain’s full derivatives venue to the country.

The proposed arrangement would place Bitnomial in charge of deploying and operating selected HIP-3 perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid’s mainnet, while NinjaTrader Clearing would handle customer accounts for U.S. participants. Orders would continue to be matched and recorded on Hyperliquid’s on-chain order book, preserving the protocol’s execution system while moving account onboarding, eligibility checks, clearing and related compliance functions into regulated entities.

Payward said the markets would only launch after the necessary regulatory approvals. The company did not identify a launch date, tradable assets, leverage limits or the number of contracts that could become available.

The structure offers a narrower route into the U.S. market than a general opening of Hyperliquid’s existing perpetual futures platform. American users admitted through the program would be restricted to Bitnomial-deployed HIP-3 markets and would not gain access to the full range of perpetual contracts already trading on Hyperliquid’s public mainnet.

Bitnomial would operate the on-chain markets

Under Payward’s proposal, Bitnomial would create, own and manage the HIP-3 markets. It would also be responsible for clearing and settling the contracts under its own rules, subject to regulatory approval.

HIP-3 is Hyperliquid’s framework for permissioned market deployment. In this model, a designated deployer can create a market with customized access controls, rather than allowing every wallet interacting with the public network to trade it. That feature gives a market operator a way to impose eligibility requirements while using Hyperliquid’s underlying blockchain and order-book infrastructure.

NinjaTrader Clearing, described by Payward as a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-registered futures commission merchant, would manage the U.S. customer accounts connected to those markets. A futures commission merchant is a regulated intermediary that can accept customer funds and orders for futures trading, while maintaining customer-account controls and compliance procedures.

The division of responsibilities is central to the proposal. Hyperliquid would provide the venue where orders are matched and trade records are written on-chain. Bitnomial would control the contracts listed through HIP-3, and NinjaTrader Clearing would sit between eligible U.S. customers and the market-access layer.

That design could allow on-chain execution to coexist with the account oversight expected in the U.S. futures market, without requiring every existing Hyperliquid product to meet the same access conditions.

Access would depend on dual whitelists

Payward said prospective users would first need to pass NinjaTrader Clearing’s review process. Approved customers would then need to appear on whitelists maintained by both NinjaTrader and Bitnomial before they could trade the relevant contracts.

The dual-whitelist approach would give the clearing firm and market operator separate control over who can access the contracts. It also means holding a wallet capable of interacting with Hyperliquid would not, by itself, qualify a U.S. resident to use these markets.

The arrangement differs from the usual experience on decentralized perpetual futures venues, where users commonly connect a self-custodied wallet and trade directly through the protocol. Here, the customer relationship and permitted trading activity would be tied to a regulated account process before an order reaches Hyperliquid’s order book.

Payward’s announcement leaves several practical questions for the approval process. Bitnomial’s final contract rules would determine which assets can underlie the perpetual futures, how collateral and margin operate, and what leverage limits apply. Those decisions will shape whether the initial product resembles the broad crypto perpetual offerings available offshore or a more constrained set of U.S.-compliant contracts.

Earlier testing pointed to a restricted U.S. design

The announcement follows earlier signs that Hyperliquid and Payward were exploring a gated U.S. product rather than unrestricted access.

Shaunda Devens, an analyst at Blockworks, reported that a deployer identified as “Kraken HIP-3 test DEX” had enabled a permission setting known as “Star gating” on Hyperliquid’s testnet. Devens said the testing had gone live on Aug. 19. Such a setting is consistent with a model in which a market operator determines which accounts may trade.

Bloomberg reported on Sept. 1 that Hyperliquid was in discussions with Payward over a potential route for U.S. users to trade certain token-price perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid’s blockchain, contingent on approvals. Payward’s disclosure provides the clearest public description so far of how that route would work: restricted markets, regulated customer-account management and on-chain matching.

The proposal also arrives amid unresolved legislative debate in Washington. The Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act in a 49-50 procedural vote on the same day as Payward’s disclosure, according to the material provided. The bill sought to define regulatory boundaries for digital assets and assign responsibilities between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC.

Existing registrations provide the proposed route

A stalled legislative effort does not prevent regulated firms from working within existing futures-market rules. Payward’s plan is built around registered intermediaries, contract-level approvals and controlled customer access rather than waiting for Congress to create a comprehensive digital-asset framework.

The SEC and CFTC have continued to address portions of the digital-asset market through existing authority, including guidance, interpretations and no-action processes. In the proposed Hyperliquid model, that framework would govern the customer-facing and clearing functions, while the trade-matching layer remains on a public blockchain.

Whether the arrangement proceeds will depend on the approvals sought by Bitnomial and the terms regulators permit. If authorized, it would give U.S. customers a regulated channel into a defined segment of Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures activity, while leaving the protocol’s broader global market separate from that permissioned access layer.