New York Stock Exchange owner agrees to bring Hyperliquid-based perpetual futures to America

Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, said on 29 October that it had signed a binding agreement to bring Trade[XYZ]'s blockchain-based markets to America. Trade[XYZ] runs perpetual futures on Hyperliquid, a blockchain built for trading derivatives. A perpetual future tracks the price of an asset but never expires, so a trader can hold a bet for as long as they like. Trade[XYZ] offers such contracts on shares, stock indices, commodities and currencies, around the clock, to customers outside the United States.

Under the deal, Intercontinental Exchange becomes the only operator of Trade[XYZ]'s regulated markets. It plans a new, separate market for ordinary traders, built on Hyperliquid, with its own arrangements for clearing, the step that guarantees each side of a trade gets paid. The new market would also cover crypto. Trade[XYZ] designs the contracts and Hyperliquid supplies the technology underneath. Intercontinental Exchange is also buying a minority stake in Trade[XYZ]. Neither side has disclosed the price, and Intercontinental Exchange says the stake will not materially affect its 2026 results.

None of this is live, and none of it is approved. The companies still need regulators' approval for the new market, including permission to let customers trade with borrowed money. The release does not say which regulators. Crypto Times, a crypto news site, names the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the US regulator for futures. Once approved, customers who have passed identity and money-laundering checks would trade through futures brokers that join the platform. Intercontinental Exchange also expects to sell the contracts through its joint venture with OKX, a crypto exchange. That venture is still waiting for its own approval to act as a broker.

For Intercontinental Exchange this is a move into retail trading. It says its markets today are more than 99% institutional. It will keep the new business apart from its existing futures markets and clearing houses, so that their commercial customers carry none of the risk of retail traders failing to pay. "We see these perp markets as additive to our futures markets, not a replacement for them," said Jeffrey Sprecher, its chairman and chief executive.

The deal leans on a legal fight that is not over. CME Group, the largest American derivatives exchange, sued the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in June over its approval of perpetual contracts. CME argues that they are swaps, a class of derivatives with stricter rules, rather than futures. Ledger Insights, a trade publication, says the whole Trade[XYZ] structure depends on the regulator's view holding up. Terry Duffy, CME's outgoing chief executive, said this week that he would abide by a ruling against him, but did not see how a court could reach one.

Much else is unknown. Trade[XYZ] says its markets on Hyperliquid have handled more than $650bn of trading in just over a year, CryptoSlate, a crypto news site, reported. Neither company has said how fees on the American market would be shared with Hyperliquid. On 31 October Crypto Times reported that Intercontinental Exchange had deleted its own social-media post announcing the deal, without explanation. The press release was still on the company's website that day. All three reports come from the crypto and trade press.