- Jeff Yan said US regulators should supervise the financial firms operating markets on Hyperliquid rather than the network itself, arguing that regulation sits at the layer where controls exist and that the deployers are the parties exercising those controls, much as firms using internet infrastructure are regulated rather than the infrastructure.
- The structure is already being built. Payward, Kraken’s parent, plans to offer US investors derivatives using Hyperliquid’s technology through a regulated exchange, which would give the network a CFTC-regulated operator even though its own perpetual futures market remains closed to US customers.
- Yan said the firm is not trying to displace anything and that the technology can benefit everyone currently operating markets in more traditional settings.
- The political groundwork precedes the regulatory process. Trump said in August that the CFTC was working to bring Hyperliquid into the US under federal regulations, a statement that sent its token up 11%.
What Happened?
Hyperliquid is best known for its perpetual futures trading platform, which remains unavailable to US customers.
Why It Matters?
Two regulators have now taken opposite positions on the same structural question within a week, and the contrast is worth holding. The European Securities and Markets Authority has just ordered authorised platforms to stop servicing stablecoins that do not comply with its rules, using the intermediary layer as a chokepoint precisely because it has no jurisdiction over an issuer based elsewhere. Yan proposes that the intermediary layer be the only point of regulation, leaving the network untouched. Both treat the deployer as the regulable party; one does so to extend reach, the other to limit it. How US regulators resolve that determines how much of this industry sits inside supervision. The internet analogy is the crux and it bears examination. Regulating a bank’s website rather than the underlying protocol makes sense because the protocol routes packets and does nothing else. A blockchain running perpetual futures executes trades, holds collateral, performs liquidations and applies margin parameters, which are exchange functions. Whether those controls are genuinely exercised by the deployer or embedded in the code is the contested question, and asserting the former does not settle it. Readers should treat Yan’s framing as the position of an interested party rather than a description of how the technology works. The Payward route is the practical test and it is proceeding ahead of any ruling. A CFTC-regulated operator offering US clients access to markets running on an unregulated network, while the network itself stays closed to those customers directly, is the model in miniature. If it works it becomes the template, and it arrives as geared products reach US retail quickly from several directions, with Robinhood offering up to ten times leverage on crypto perpetuals, Cboe exploring perpetual futures on the VIX and the SEC clearing 3x leveraged crypto ETFs.
What Next?
The CFTC’s approach is the decisive variable, and Trump’s August comment indicates political direction without establishing a rule. Watch whether the Payward arrangement launches and under what conditions, since it tests the deployer-regulation model in practice. Any formal CFTC guidance on where obligations attach in onchain markets would settle a question affecting far more than one network. For investors the broader point is that perpetual futures are arriving in US retail through several channels at once, and the regulatory perimeter around them is being drawn now.
Affected Tickers and Coins: HYPE, COIN, HOOD, CME
Source: CoinDesk
