ICE Plans US Hyperliquid Perps Venue With Trade[XYZ]

Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, plans to run a US-regulated market for perpetual futures built on the Hyperliquid blockchain, together with Trade[XYZ], one of the biggest operators of markets on that network. The deal still needs regulatory approval, and no launch date has been given.

ICE announced “a definitive agreement to bring Trade[XYZ]’s perpetual markets onshore in the United States” on 29 October. It will be the exclusive operator of the regulated markets and is also taking a minority stake in Trade[XYZ]. Neither side disclosed the size of the investment.

What the two firms plan

Perpetual futures are contracts that track the price of an asset but never expire, so traders can hold a position for as long as they keep up their margin. They are widely traded on crypto venues outside the US. Trade[XYZ] runs such markets on Hyperliquid, the trading-focused blockchain TSN profiled in our explainer, and offers contracts tied to stocks, indices, commodities and currencies to users outside the US.

“In just over a year, our markets on Hyperliquid have surpassed $650 billion in volume,” Trade[XYZ] said on X. “Until now, Americans could only watch.” It said the US market would have “novel exchange and clearing infrastructure built on Hyperliquid”, with planned contracts on equities, indices, commodities, foreign exchange and crypto, and that details on “products, eligibility, and timing” would follow as approvals progress. The firm signed off with a name for the venue: ICE[XYZ].

Customers would not connect directly. According to ICE, traders who have passed identity and anti-money-laundering checks would reach the markets through futures commission merchants, the regulated brokers of the US futures industry, that join the platform. ICE expects to sell the contracts through its joint venture with crypto exchange OKX too, which itself still needs approval as a US broker-dealer and futures commission merchant. ICE said it will also seek approvals “needed to support leveraged trading”.

A retail business kept apart

ICE presents this as a move into a new kind of customer. Its participation today is “more than 99% institutional”, the release says, and the new market will be a separate retail business with its own clearing structure. ICE says its commercial hedgers “bear no exposure to the trading or counterparty risk of retail traders” on the new platform. In its own X post, ICE said the venue would offer “a trading experience designed for retail participation”.

“We see these perp markets as additive to our futures markets, not a replacement for them,” said Jeffrey Sprecher, ICE’s chair and chief executive. ICE does not expect the stake to have a material effect on its 2026 adjusted results.

Trade[XYZ] said a small group of investors is joining, “beginning with Stan Druckenmiller”, and that it will keep running and expanding its existing Hyperliquid markets alongside the US venue.

Regulating the operator, not the chain

The structure follows the line Hyperliquid founder Jeff Yan argued for this month, when he said US rules should cover the firms running markets on his blockchain, not the network itself. Here a regulated exchange operator takes on clearing, customer checks and supervision, while the blockchain stays the underlying engine. If regulators accept that model, it gives other Hyperliquid market builders a template.

It also brings round-the-clock trading of stock and commodity contracts, already common offshore, closer to ordinary US traders. That has risks. Leveraged contracts that trade while stock markets are shut can move violently, as the $51.6m of chip-stock liquidations TSN covered earlier this month showed. Institutions already have a route in: Ripple Prime launched 24/7 real-world-asset perpetual swaps for professional clients this month, referencing Trade.xyz contracts on Hyperliquid.

The open questions are timing and terms. Without a launch date, product list or approval decision, the plan is an intention backed by an exchange group’s balance sheet, not yet a market.