Payward plans to offer U.S. clients onchain perpetual futures via Hyperliquid, pending regulatory approval, following its acquisition of Bitnomial.
Payward is preparing to offer U.S. clients access to onchain perpetual futures through the Hyperliquid platform, pending regulatory approval. This move follows the company's recent acquisition of Bitnomial for $550 million, positioning Payward to potentially become the first registered U.S. exchange to utilize the Hyperliquid protocol.
Details of the Initiative
The planned perpetual futures will be traded on Hyperliquid’s public blockchain and regulated under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) via the Bitnomial Exchange. NinjaTrader Clearing will manage client accounts, which will require approval from both NinjaTrader and Bitnomial.
If approved, this initiative could introduce a highly demanded onchain product to a regulated environment in the U.S. However, Payward has yet to disclose specific details such as launch dates, fee structures, or expected trading volumes.
Payward aims to enhance its offerings by allowing U.S. clients to engage in onchain trading of perpetual futures markets, starting with Hyperliquid's HIP-3 markets. This includes enabling third parties to create and oversee their own permissioned markets.
Jon Pham, head of U.S. derivatives at Payward, noted that clients will open futures accounts through Payward’s registered broker and trade new perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid, cleared by the same clearinghouse that currently supports Payward’s crypto perpetual contracts.
Perpetual futures have mostly been traded outside U.S. regulated markets since their introduction in 2016, with a staggering $85 trillion exchanged globally in 2025. Hyperliquid's decentralized exchange currently holds about 9% of all open perpetual positions worldwide. This development could also provide financial relief for Hyperliquid, which experienced a 43% drop in revenue in Q3 2025, totaling approximately $202 million in Q2 2026.
Payward’s aim is to integrate a popular offshore trading product into a regulated U.S. framework while ensuring trade matching and record-keeping on Hyperliquid. Despite the promising outlook, Payward has not commented on anticipated revenue from this initiative or the economic arrangement with Hyperliquid.
Hyperliquid stands to benefit from this proposal by welcoming a CFTC-regulated operator and additional U.S.-related activity. Nevertheless, it remains unclear if existing perpetual markets will be accessible to U.S. clients, and the revenue-sharing model between the two companies has not been specified.
