ICE taps Hyperliquid to build a regulated US perpetual futures venue

Intercontinental Exchange is making a grab for the one crypto product US traders have been locked out of. The NYSE parent confirmed a strategic deal with Trade[XYZ] to build a regulated perpetual futures market on American soil, with ICE as the exclusive operator and Trade[XYZ] riding along as partner. ICE is also taking a minority stake in Trade[XYZ], though the size of that check stayed private.

Here's the twist: the venue would run on Hyperliquid's rails. Specifically, it would use the platform's HIP-3 deployment mechanism, a framework that lets operators spin up their own markets on top of Hyperliquid's trading engine. In plain terms, ICE runs the storefront and Hyperliquid supplies the motor. For anyone outside a trading terminal, a perpetual future is a contract with no expiration date, unlike a standard futures deal that matures like a carton of milk.

The pitch is aimed squarely at everyday traders. The market would offer leveraged trading around the clock, seven days a week, spanning crypto, equities, indices, commodities and forex, with ICE saying it wants to serve unmet retail demand for shorter-duration assets. It wouldn't be a free-for-all: customers would come in through regulated futures commission merchants, the brokers licensed to handle futures clients in the US, complete with standard KYC and anti-money laundering checks.

Trade[XYZ] brings receipts. The firm has racked up more than $650 billion in trading volume in just over a year on Hyperliquid's HIP-3 markets, and heavyweight investors including billionaire Stan Druckenmiller are attached to the effort. The market reacted fast — Hyperliquid's HYPE token climbed roughly 13-15% after the announcement, landing near $91.

Nothing is live yet. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission still has to sign off on both the market structure and the leveraged trading it would offer, and no launch date has been set. The open questions are the ones that usually decide these things: when the CFTC moves, which FCMs step up to offer access, and whether Trade[XYZ]'s offshore volume survives contact with US oversight and identity checks. The undisclosed size of ICE's minority stake is another tell — a bigger number would say more about how deep the exchange operator's conviction runs.