Yesterday I wrote about finding a forgotten Ethena airdrop in my dashboard. This week the surprise came from the other direction: two of my favorite trades of 2026 walked into the same room.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Hyperliquid is in talks with Payward, the parent company of Kraken, to bring its perps to US traders. Days earlier, Hyperliquid listed PONS-USDC perps. Hyperliquid is the coin I never sold. PONS is the trade that paid for my summer. Both stories landed within a week of each other, and both changed what I’m doing with my money.
So this post does two jobs. First, what the Hyperliquid Bitnomial deal actually is, stripped of the hype. Second, why a perps listing made me close the last of my PONS.
What Bloomberg Actually Reported
The details matter here, because “Hyperliquid coming to the US” is not what’s on the table. Not yet.
Under the proposed structure, Payward’s subsidiary Bitnomial would offer registered US users access to a selection of crypto perpetuals linked to Hyperliquid’s markets. Bitnomial is the piece that makes this possible. Payward bought it in April for up to $550 million, and with it came a CFTC-licensed derivatives stack: exchange, clearing, and brokerage, all under one roof.
Payward has already pitched the CFTC with an outline of the structure. Approval is still pending. Kraken declined to comment, and Hyperliquid Labs hasn’t said a word, which is standard for them.
In plain terms: Americans would trade a regulated futures product on Bitnomial that mirrors what’s happening on Hyperliquid. They would not be connecting a wallet to the DEX. The DEX stays offshore. The wrapper goes onshore.
Why This Route, and Why Now
Hyperliquid has been geofencing the US since day one, and for good reason. A no-KYC perps venue doing $190 billion a month in volume is exactly what regulators lose sleep over. The bear case in my HYPE DCA strategy was regulation, full stop.
Then the tone in Washington shifted. In May, the CFTC greenlit KalshiEX and Coinbase to list crypto perpetual contracts. Trump name-checked Hyperliquid at a press conference and said the CFTC chair was working to bring the platform into the US “in a fully compliant and legal fashion.” Last week the Hyperliquid Policy Center urged the SEC and CFTC to harmonize their rules on perps, arguing that clear rules would pull market share onshore.
Hyperliquid stopped dodging the rules and started shaping them. Partnering with the most regulation-friendly exchange in crypto is the logical next step. Kraken has been breach-free since 2011, holds a MiCA license, and now owns a US futures exchange. If you had to pick one CEX to walk a DEX through the front door of the CFTC, it’s this one.
We compared the two head-to-head in our Hyperliquid vs Kraken review. The verdict was “run both”: Kraken for custody and fiat, Hyperliquid for fees and airdrops. Turns out the two companies reached the same conclusion.
The Twelve-Month Problem
Here’s the part the headlines skipped.
Former SEC senior counsel Ashley Ebersole told The Block that both the SEC and the CFTC may need to write revised interpretive rules around custody and order routing before this works. His estimate: at least 10 to 12 months, “assuming things went quickly.” Nothing in US financial regulation goes quickly.
Add to that the incumbents. CME Group and ICE reportedly warned the CFTC and Capitol Hill earlier this summer that Hyperliquid’s model could enable manipulation and sanctions evasion. Those two run the biggest derivatives venues in the world, and they don’t want a DEX eating their lunch on their home turf.
My read: the deal is real, the direction is clear, and the timeline is 2027. Trade the news as a narrative, not a launch date.
What It Means for HYPE
HYPE printed an all-time high just above $86 last week and is up over 85% in a year, while most of the market is still licking its wounds. The demand side keeps stacking. Bitwise’s spot HYPE ETF is staking roughly $75 million of tokens. Hyperliquid Strategies, the Nasdaq-listed treasury company, raised about $650 million to grow its stack to 29.3 million HYPE. Whales pulled another $54 million off Coinbase to stake.
Now layer the Bitnomial news on top. Every Bitnomial trade that routes through Hyperliquid’s books generates fees, and 99% of perp fees go to the Assistance Fund, which buys HYPE. US retail volume flowing into the buyback engine is the most bullish version of this story. It’s a year away, but markets price things early.
Full disclosure on my own position: my DCA orders from $52 down to $38 are still sitting unfilled. HYPE never came back for them. I’m not chasing at $80, and I’m not cancelling the orders either. If a regulatory delay or a nasty macro week hands me a 40% discount, I want to be there. Everything else about the thesis in my DCA post still stands.
For the legal side, our evergreen is Hyperliquid legal in the US post gets an update today with this development.
What It Means for Farmers
Short version: nothing changes, and that’s good news.
A Bitnomial-wrapped perp is a CFTC futures contract on a registered exchange. Season 3 points accrue on Hyperliquid itself, to wallets trading on the DEX. US traders getting the wrapped product will almost certainly not be farming points through it. The offshore window stays exactly as valuable as it was yesterday.
If anything, the Kraken deal raises the ceiling on what those points could be worth. Hyperliquid Season 3 is still our favorite farm on the site, and the Hyperliquid ecosystem keeps adding markets to trade. Which brings me to the second story.
PONS Perps: Why I Sold the Rest
Hyperliquid listed PONS-USDC perps this week. For a Robinhood Chain launchpad token that didn’t exist six months ago, that’s a serious stamp. Perps on the best DEX in crypto means deep liquidity, real price discovery, and institutional-sized traders finally able to touch it.
I sold my remaining PONS on the news.
That probably sounds backwards, so let me explain. I entered PONS around a $23 million market cap and took profits on the way up, all the way to $280 million. The full trade is in our Pons vs Pump.fun breakdown. What I had left was house money, and I was happy to let it ride as long as one condition held: nobody could short it in size.
That condition just died. A perps listing is great for the project. It’s also the moment big money gets a tool to bet against the price. Every parabolic run I’ve watched over thirteen years eventually met a shorting venue, and the chart looked different afterwards. Funding rates cap the upside. Basis traders arb the spot premium away. The pure-long, no-hedge phase, where a small-cap can go vertical because there’s simply no way to fade it, ends.
PONS may well go higher from here. I hope it does, and I’ll be cheering from the sidelines. But the specific setup I was paid for is over. On to the next one.
What Is the Next PONS?
That’s the question I’ve been asking myself since I hit sell.
The PONS trade worked because of a specific mix: a new chain with real distribution, a launchpad that actually paid creators, a token with burns behind it, and, crucially, no perps market for months. It was long-only by construction. The next PONS will share that structure, not the name.
So my checklist for the next one looks like this. A product with revenue you can verify on-chain. A narrative big enough that CT will eventually catch on. And a spot-only market where the degens are the only participants. When perps arrive, the trade matures and I start taking chips off. That’s the whole playbook, and it hasn’t changed since I did it with the original Hyperliquid farm.
I have a few candidates on my watchlist. Delta is one of them; I positioned small there already. When I’m fully confident on one of them, my newsletter subscribers hear about it first.
Keep This Content Free
Two trades, one week, and neither of them came from a paid group. If you want to keep it that way, sign up on OKX or Bybit through our referral links. It costs you nothing and keeps the lights on here. And if you’re going to farm Season 3 anyway, use our Hyperliquid link for a 4% fee discount.
Final Words
The Hyperliquid Bitnomial deal is the clearest US path the project has ever had. It’s also a year away, at best, and it arrives wrapped in a regulated product that won’t earn you a single airdrop point. Keep farming the DEX. Keep your DCA orders where they are. Let the regulators do their thing.
As for PONS, I’m out, and I’m fine with that. Selling into good news is the hardest habit to build in this market, and it’s the one that keeps you solvent. The next PONS is out there. I’ll let you know when I find it.
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If you enjoyed this one, dig into more of our trading content. See you next time!
This is not financial advice. This is what I’m personally doing with my own money. Do your own research, size your positions responsibly, and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
FAQ
Is Hyperliquid launching in the US? Not directly. Bloomberg reports Hyperliquid is in talks with Kraken’s parent, Payward, whose subsidiary Bitnomial would offer US users regulated perps linked to Hyperliquid’s markets. The DEX itself stays offshore.
When will the Hyperliquid Bitnomial deal go live? No date exists. Payward has pitched the CFTC, and approval is pending. A former SEC counsel estimates the rules work alone could take 10 to 12 months, so 2027 is a realistic target.
Will US traders earn Hyperliquid Season 3 points through Kraken? Almost certainly not. Points accrue to wallets trading on the Hyperliquid DEX. A Bitnomial futures contract is a separate, regulated product.
Why does the Hyperliquid Bitnomial deal matter for HYPE? It opens a path for US volume to flow through Hyperliquid’s books, and 99% of perp fees feed the HYPE buyback fund. That’s a long-term demand driver on top of ETF staking and treasury buying.
Why sell PONS after Hyperliquid listed perps? Perps let large traders short the token for the first time. That ends the long-only phase that drives small-cap parabolas. I took the last of my house money off; the project can still do well.
What is the next PONS? Any token with verifiable revenue, a growing narrative, and a spot-only market with no perps yet. When the perps arrive, the easy part of the trade is over.
