Payward, the parent company of Kraken, announced plans to introduce on-chain perpetual futures for eligible U.S. clients through Hyperliquid's HIP-3 infrastructure. The initiative, announced Sept. 16, designates Hyperliquid as the initial blockchain protocol for these offerings.
The proposed contracts remain subject to regulatory approval and are not yet available for U.S. trading. Bitnomial Exchange would function as the HIP-3 deployer, creating, owning and administering the perpetual markets. Bitnomial Clearinghouse would manage clearing and settlement, while trades themselves would utilize Hyperliquid's on-chain order book for matching and recording.
This proposal builds on Payward's existing U.S. derivatives operations. In its second-quarter 2026 financial update, Payward reported that Bitnomial's infrastructure already supports regulated U.S. perpetual futures and spot margin products. The company reported 6.6 million funded accounts by the end of June, up 42 percent year-over-year.
The planned structure differs from Payward's current U.S. perpetual futures offerings because it directly incorporates Hyperliquid's public blockchain infrastructure. Under HIP-3, builder-deployed markets inherit HyperCore's order books and margin system. Deployers control contract definitions, oracle price feeds, leverage limits and settlement procedures for their markets.
While HIP-3 was initially designed as permissionless infrastructure, Hyperliquid recently added optional permissioning capabilities. This feature enables market deployers to restrict participation through on-chain allowlists, developed to support markets where regulatory or institutional requirements necessitate limiting access.
Payward intends to leverage this permissioning model for its U.S. customer base. Access would be restricted to traders successfully onboarded by NinjaTrader Clearing and included on both NinjaTrader and Bitnomial allowlists. American customers would not have unrestricted access to all markets currently available on Hyperliquid. Bitnomial would retain authority to determine which specific regulated products it deploys under its own exchange rules.
Bitnomial Exchange holds CFTC designation as a contract market, granted in 2020, and remains listed on the Commission's current register. Bitnomial Clearinghouse is separately registered with the CFTC as a derivatives clearing organization authorized to clear futures, options on futures and fully collateralized swaps. NinjaTrader Clearing is a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant and National Futures Association member operating under NFA ID 0309379.
