Hyperliquid Founder Wants US Rules on Deployers, Not the Chain

Jeff Yan, the founder of Hyperliquid, wants US regulators to supervise the financial firms that run trading markets on his blockchain rather than the blockchain itself. He made the argument in an interview on Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast released on 15 October, saying regulatory obligations should fall on the firms deploying markets on Hyperliquid rather than on the network.

That distinction carries the business case. Hyperliquid's own perpetual futures market stays closed to US customers, and Yan's proposal would let Wall Street firms build trading businesses on the chain without the blockchain registering as a regulated exchange.

Yan Puts the Obligation on the Market Deployers

He compared the model to internet infrastructure, which regulated financial firms use to deliver services without the underlying network drawing the same oversight, and cited Amazon Web Services as an example. Yan's stated principle is that regulation belongs at the layer where controls exist, and that the deployers of a market are the ones exercising those controls.

He also said Hyperliquid is not trying to displace traditional market operators, and that the technology can benefit everyone currently running markets in a more traditional setting.

Read plainly, this is Yan's preferred interpretation of how existing financial rules should apply to decentralized infrastructure. It is an argument made in an interview, not an announced change from a regulator.

Payward Is Building the First Test Case

Payward, Kraken's parent company, said on 16 September that it intends to deploy onchain perpetual futures markets for US clients, starting with Hyperliquid HIP-3 markets, which let outside builders deploy their own permissioned perpetual markets (press release).

Under the plan, Bitnomial, Payward's CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse, would be the HIP-3 deployer: it would create, own and administer the market and clear and settle the contracts. NinjaTrader Clearing, Payward's CFTC-registered futures commission merchant, would carry client accounts, and only accounts onboarded by NinjaTrader and on both firms' allowlists could trade.

"Multiple venues run builder-deployed perpetuals on Hyperliquid. One holds 98 percent of their open interest, and no registered US exchange or clearinghouse has deployed a market there," said Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi. "Payward intends to be the first, holding the keys and carrying the regulatory obligations."

The contracts would be listed under the rules of Bitnomial Exchange, and the offering remains subject to regulatory approval.

Hyperliquid's Own Book Stays Off Limits to US Traders

Payward's plan does not open Hyperliquid's existing permissionless perpetual market. It builds separate markets on the same chain, with a registered US exchange doing the deploying and allowlists controlling who can trade.

A US client would open a futures account with Payward's registered broker and trade the contracts through the same clearinghouse that supports the crypto perpetuals Payward offers US clients today.

The scale is why the structure is worth watching. Perpetual futures traded more than $85 trillion worldwide in 2025, per CoinGecko's 2026 State of Crypto Perpetuals Report, and Hyperliquid settles roughly 9% of all open perp positions globally by the same count. Payward said Hyperliquid, live since 2023, handled more than $200 billion of volume in the 30 days before its announcement, per DefiLlama, and that CoinGecko ranked it the most active onchain perpetuals venue of 2025.

The Split Has Not Been Tested

President Donald Trump said in August that the CFTC was working to bring Hyperliquid into the US in a compliant and legal way. HYPE rose 11% that day. The remark did not settle how the venue would be regulated.

For Yan, the useful part of the Payward structure is where the controls sit: a CFTC-regulated exchange deploys the market, a registered futures commission merchant onboards the client, and the chain itself stays out of exchange registration.

Payward's offering has not been approved yet. Until it is, the split Yan described remains a proposal with one live test attached.