Can Kraken's Parent Company Open the Door for Hyperliquid to Enter the U.S. Market?

The path for Hyperliquid to enter the U.S. market under the licensing system HIP-3 needs to be clearly outlined.

Written by: Hans

Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

The focus of rule-making in the U.S. crypto market is shifting from Congress to regulatory agencies. This article places three matters within the same framework: where legislation has stalled, what this means for HYPE, and how the licensing system HIP-3 can connect U.S. customers to Hyperliquid. To understand this path, it is essential to clarify one point: Hyperliquid may not need to register itself, as licensed entities can establish their own markets on top of it.

Legislative Stalemate: Congress Only Passed Stablecoin Law

Currently, the only federal crypto legislation that has been enacted is the GENIUS Act, which pertains to payment stablecoins, set to take effect in July 2025. The market structure bill, the CLARITY Act, originally aimed to delineate regulatory boundaries between the SEC and CFTC, passed the House in July 2025 but ended debate in the Senate on September 15, 2026, with a vote of 49 to 50, failing to pass. Just one vote short, the bill did not become law.

Jake Chervinsky from Hyperliquid's policy center stated, "We didn't get Clarity this week, but we gained certainty about the path ahead." The author interprets this as indicating that the focus will now be on the CFTC rather than the next round of congressional votes.

Regulatory Transition: SEC and CFTC Paving the Way This Year

On March 17, the SEC and CFTC jointly clarified how securities laws apply to crypto assets, replacing the framework established by SEC staff in 2019. Digital securities, digital commodities, collectibles, and instruments were defined separately: on-chain stocks, bonds, and fund shares are directly regulated as securities; digital commodities are not regulated as securities; stablecoins will ultimately depend on their terms.

On May 29, the CFTC approved the first Bitcoin perpetual contract on U.S. futures exchanges. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) filed a lawsuit in June to overturn this approval. Whether perpetual contracts can be traded on U.S. exchanges remains unresolved in court.

On August 18, the SEC proposed the Crypto Asset Regulation: token projects can pursue issuance exemptions; the safe harbor specifies that tokens will no longer be considered investment contracts once the issuer completes or abandons the originally promised work.

On September 17, three significant events occurred. The CFTC's Letter 26-25 allows front-end applications to direct users to registered U.S. brokers and exchanges without needing to register as introducing brokers, provided they do not hold funds, provide trading signals, or determine order routing. This effectively extends the exemption granted to the wallet Phantom in March to all qualifying applications. In July, Hyperliquid's policy center and Phantom requested that this exemption be formalized as applicable to all wallets. On the same day, the SEC approved an innovation exemption allowing on-chain venues to trade U.S. stocks backed one-to-one by real stocks. Also on that day, the CFTC submitted crypto trading and market rules to the White House, still in the preliminary rule phase, with no public text available. Whether on-chain order books can be recognized as clearing engines is believed to be addressed in this yet-to-be-released document.

On August 19, Trump stated that CFTC Chairman Selig is pushing for Hyperliquid to "come ashore in a fully compliant and legal manner." Letter 26-25 covers applications directing users to registered U.S. venues, and Hyperliquid itself is currently not one of these venues. The emerging approach does not require it to register: a registered company can deploy its market on HyperCore, with customers being served by that company.

HYPE Positioning: Digital Commodity Logic and Futures Listing

According to the March joint explanation, the value of digital commodities comes from usable networks and supply and demand, rather than team management; holders do not have rights to profits, earnings, or asset claims. The author assesses HYPE based on its utility: it pays gas on HyperEVM; stakes to validators to provide security for HyperBFT consensus; HIP-3/4 deployers must lock 500,000 HYPE as a forfeitable margin; holders have no claim to exchange revenues.

The document names 16 types of digital commodities, including BTC, ETH, SOL, and XRP. Footnote 51 provides the selection criteria: each must be "traded as a futures contract subject to CFTC regulation on designated contract markets." HYPE did not have such contracts at that time, hence it was not named. This does not mean it is excluded; it simply indicates that the naming list follows those already listed futures.

On May 18, Coinbase derivatives launched HYPE perpetual-style futures under CFTC self-certification per Section 40.2, opening on June 8 without being halted in the interim. Self-certification means the exchange reports to the CFTC before listing, not a qualitative decision made by the committee. However, this contract is listed as a commodity futures. The author believes that HYPE has been traded as commodity futures on U.S. exchanges.

U.S. Entry Template: Payward Combining Three Licenses

On September 16, Kraken's parent company Payward announced plans to pursue the licensing system HIP-3. The structure breaks down into three licensed entities:

• Designated contract market Bitnomial Exchange, which creates, owns, and manages the licensed HIP-3 market;
• Derivatives clearing organization Bitnomial Clearinghouse, responsible for clearing and settlement;
• Futures commission merchant NinjaTrader Clearing, responsible for account opening and custody.

Only accounts opened through NinjaTrader and simultaneously on the NinjaTrader and Bitnomial whitelists can trade these contracts. This is not an open global order book, but rather a U.S. customer pool within a licensed list. Payward acquired Bitnomial on May 1 this year to obtain these three licenses for exchange, clearinghouse, and futures brokerage. The launch date, fee structure, and underlying assets have not been disclosed, and the plan is still awaiting regulatory approval.

Clearing Division of Labor: HyperCore Matching, Licensed Clearinghouse as Backup

How clearing is divided is the most technical and critical part of the entire text. HyperCore has already implemented market monitoring, margin freezing, and liquidation execution through code. Registered clearinghouses are more likely to act as backups: through the modifyBackstopLiquidatorApproval parameter, deployers can designate who takes over positions that cannot be liquidated. Bitnomial Clearinghouse is the natural bearer of this position and the corresponding losses. The author specifies that this is what he believes to be the most likely outcome, provided the CFTC recognizes that the agreement code can serve as a clearing engine.

Payward is the first company to publicly disclose such a structure. Other registered exchanges and brokers can follow suit. In each case, the broker's own app is the most natural front end; wallets and other trading applications can also direct U.S. users as long as they meet the three restrictions of Letter 26-25, without needing to become brokers themselves.

Future Observations: Three Matters Determine the Pace of Implementation

• When HIP-3 will go live on the mainnet;
• Whether Bitnomial self-certified under Section 40.2 or went through approval;
• Whether crypto market rules can pass the White House------whether on-chain order books can serve as clearing engines is addressed in that text.

The author's conclusion is somewhat optimistic: most components needed to bring Hyperliquid into the U.S. in a compliant manner are already on the table; HYPE meets institutional definitions of digital commodities and has been traded as commodity futures on U.S. exchanges; licensed entities also have a template------registered exchanges deploy markets, registered brokers serve customers, and HyperCore handles matching, margin, and liquidation. Payward has already indicated that it does not believe it will be the last.

Three areas remain unresolved: whether the CFTC will recognize agreement code as a clearing engine; whether CME's challenge to U.S. exchange perpetual contracts will fail; and whether HIP-3 will go live on the mainnet. Under this administration, with the SEC and CFTC already in the driver's seat, the author expects the pace to accelerate.

These are the pathways outlined by insiders in the ecosystem, not regulatory approvals. The opening of licensed markets does not mean that the globally unlicensed Hyperliquid is automatically legal for U.S. retail. The real verification still lies in the unpublished rule text from the White House and whether Bitnomial has listed the contracts.