Kraken parent Payward says it intends to offer onchain perpetual futures to eligible U.S. customers, beginning with markets deployed on Hyperliquid. The proposed arrangement would use Payward's regulated derivatives businesses to administer contracts while Hyperliquid's public blockchain handles the onchain order book. The company announced the plan on September 16 and said the listings remain subject to the relevant regulatory process.

Under the proposed structure, Bitnomial would create and administer the markets and clear and settle the contracts. NinjaTrader Clearing would carry customer accounts. Both firms are part of Payward's derivatives operation and have U.S. registrations for their respective roles. Trading would be limited to accounts approved by NinjaTrader and included on the relevant allowlists, making the initial proposal a permissioned version of an onchain market.

Perpetual futures have no fixed expiration date and use a funding mechanism to keep their prices aligned with a reference market. They are familiar to global crypto traders but have had a more limited place in the U.S. Payward already offers its own U.S. perpetual products; the Hyperliquid plan would let customers access a market built on a separate blockchain through the company's existing regulated structure.

The announcement describes an intention and an operating model, not a launch of live U.S. Hyperliquid contracts. It also places responsibility for customer onboarding and market administration with identified companies. The main unanswered questions are when the regulatory process will permit trading, which contracts would be listed first and whether clients want a public-chain order book under a restricted-access model.