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Hyperliquid’s native token HYPE jumped about 20% on Thursday after Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, said it would build US perpetual futures with Trade[XYZ], an investment round backed by billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, according to Cointelegraph. HYPE traded above $96, close to September’s record of $97.96, Cointelegraph reported citing CoinGecko data.
The proposed market still needs regulatory approval and no launch date has been disclosed. Under the deal, ICE becomes the exclusive operator of Trade[XYZ]’s regulated markets and holds a strategic stake in the company, whose value has not been released.
Also read: ICE and Trade[XYZ] Sign Deal to Bring Perpetual Futures Onshore
Key facts
- HYPE traded above $96, up about 20% in 24 hours, edging toward the all-time high of $97.96 set in September.
- ICE and Trade[XYZ] said they would seek approval for markets covering cryptocurrencies, stocks, indexes, commodities and currencies, aimed at retail traders.
- Customers would pass identity and anti-money-laundering checks and trade via participating futures brokers, with distribution expected through ICE’s joint venture with OKX, pending separate approvals.
- ICE said more than 99% of its participation is institutional and would keep the retail unit under a dedicated clearing structure.
- Druckenmiller confirmed his investment on X, and Elon Musk shared the post with the one-word comment “Interesting.”
How the outlets reported the price move
The reports differ on the size of the rally. Cointelegraph put the gain at about 20%, with HYPE above $96. Decrypt reported a climb of about 13% to roughly $91, from a $80.69 open to a $92.10 high on KuCoin, and put HYPE’s market value at about $22.4 billion. Coinpedia described a rise above $86 after the token broke the $82–$84 zone, with $88 and $90 as the next levels on its hourly chart. None of the outlets reported the same figure, and the articles published at different times on Thursday.
What ICE gets, and what Hyperliquid gets
Perpetual futures let traders hold positions with no expiry date, and Hyperliquid is the largest decentralized exchange trading them by DefiLlama’s count. The pitch is a regulated US route for retail traders into Hyperliquid-based contracts, and for ICE a new route into retail.
In a press release, ICE chair and CEO Jeffrey Sprecher described the perpetuals as additive rather than a replacement for the company’s existing futures markets. The product does not open until regulators sign off, and the CFTC has said perpetuals on asset classes beyond Bitcoin should get case-by-case review, after approving a Kalshi Bitcoin perpetual contract in May.
Why it matters
The deal links a US exchange operator with a decentralized venue that serves US customers only through geofencing today. President Donald Trump said in August that CFTC chair Michael Selig was working to bring Hyperliquid into the country legally. If the plan wins approval, it would push a major derivatives venue’s infrastructure onto on-chain rails for retail customers, a step past the crypto-only futures contracts US exchanges have offered so far.
Separately, ICE’s tokenized stock venture with OKX has drawn objections from 38 companies, up from 26 in a CoinPulseHQ report on Oct. 27. Those objections cover tokenized shares, not the Trade[XYZ] perpetuals, which face their own approval process.
What to watch
Watch the regulators. The CFTC has not set a timetable for reviewing the ICE–Trade[XYZ] application, and the OKX venture’s approvals are also outstanding. The launch date, the terms of ICE’s stake and the first trading volumes will show whether the rally holds.
This is not financial advice, and HYPE remains a volatile token whose price can fall as quickly as it rose.
Reported by Cointelegraph.
Sources: Cointelegraph, Coinpedia, Decrypt