Jeffrey Sprecher, founder and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), called decentralized perpetual futures venue Hyperliquid “bigger than NASDAQ” at a Bernstein conference this week and revealed that his team has met with its founders several times, a sign that US exchange incumbents no longer treat crypto-native trading platforms as fringe.
“This Hyperliquid we’re talking about, if you haven’t heard of it, it’s bigger than the NASDAQ, okay? It’s 11 people. You look at it and you think, wow, that’s a nice thing,” Sprecher said in a May 27 fireside chat with Bernstein analyst Chinedu Bolu, calling the team “very, very smart people.”
Hyperliquid’s HYPE token has a market cap of about $15.1 billion versus Nasdaq Inc.’s $50 billion as of Thursday, so the comparison doesn’t apply to the company’s value.
However, in daily perpetual futures volume, Hyperliquid settles billions of dollars in notional turnover and owns more than 70% of the decentralized perp-DEX market, according to industry data.
The “11 people” refer to Hyperliquid Labs, the central development entity, while the broader project is based on open source contributors and a set of validators running the underlying Layer-1 blockchain.
Sprecher said ICE became aware in part because Hyperliquid has been trading oil derivatives on weekends when ICE’s traditional energy markets are closed, an activity that increased during the recent stretch of tensions in the Middle East.
JPMorgan analysts have pointed out the same pattern, noting that non-crypto traders use Hyperliquid’s 24/7 markets for after-hours oil exposure. “There’s been a lot of activity, a lot of decisions and things happening over the weekend. So it’s sparked a lot of interest,” Sprecher said.
Under U.S. law, perpetual futures offered by Hyperliquid are swaps, subject to Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act, the post-2008 legislation that prescribes reporting, margining, and dealer registration. ICE operates under those rules, while Hyperliquid, an unregulated foreign incorporated entity, does not.
“Why are they prohibiting us from doing this when it’s already happening? And we can’t have a level playing field? And by the way, this is global,” Sprecher said.
He said he hoped clearer answers would come in the coming months, and that the choice would be a new category of regulated perpetual future or bringing offshore institutions into the European Union’s Dodd-Frank and EMIR rules.
