President Donald Trump said at a White House event on August 19, 2026 Wednesday that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is working to bring Hyperliquid, the offshore decentralized perpetual futures exchange, into the US under federal oversight, sending both the platform’s token and a related publicly traded company sharply higher.
What Trump Said
“I understand that Mike is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion. Working very hard on that,” Trump said, referring to CFTC Chairman Michael Selig.
The comment came during a White House gathering of crypto and technology executives, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, with SEC Chair Paul Atkins and leaders from Nasdaq and Intercontinental Exchange also in attendance. This is the same White House meeting our earlier coverage of Trump’s planned meeting with crypto and prediction market executives tracked ahead of time.
Hyperliquid is a blockchain-based exchange best known for perpetual futures, leveraged contracts that let traders speculate on an asset’s price without an expiration date or owning the underlying asset. Traders connect their crypto wallets directly to the platform rather than opening an account with a traditional futures broker.
Co-founded by Jeff Yan, a former trader at Hudson River Trading, the platform’s main developer, Hyperliquid Labs, is based in Singapore. Hyperliquid blocks US users under its current terms of service, and its 2026 growth has been driven partly by rising demand for contracts tied to real-world assets, including equities and commodities, alongside its core crypto offerings.
Trump did not specify what an onshore version of Hyperliquid would look like or which regulatory approvals it would need, and his comments do not mean the CFTC has formally approved anything.
Selig himself said he would share more details on the regulatory path forward the following day, timing that lines up directly with the CFTC’s first-ever Innovation Advisory Committee meeting in Washington on August 20, covering crypto assets, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets.
This effort builds on groundwork laid in July, when the Hyperliquid Policy Center and wallet provider Phantom jointly petitioned the CFTC to exempt DeFi protocols from legacy exchange rules, a push our earlier coverage of Hyperliquid’s regulatory efforts with the CFTC and SEC covers in more depth.
The Market Reaction, and Two Different Assets to Keep Straight
HYPE, Hyperliquid’s native token, jumped as much as 11% following Trump’s remarks. HYPE’s market capitalization now sits near $17.58 billion, ranking it ninth among all crypto assets.
Separately, and more dramatically, shares of Hyperliquid Strategies, a publicly traded digital-asset treasury company that holds HYPE as its core strategy, jumped as much as 31% on the same day under the ticker PURR.
Hyperliquid Strategies is led by CEO David Schamis and functions as a listed vehicle giving traditional equity investors indirect exposure to Hyperliquid’s growth without holding the token directly. These are two separate assets reacting to the same news, and their moves differed considerably in scale.
Not Everyone Is on Board
CME Group and NYSE parent ICE have reportedly lobbied for tighter scrutiny of Hyperliquid, citing concerns about manipulation and sanctions exposure. That opposition lines up with why their own shares fell on this news, since a legal path for Hyperliquid to operate in the US would let it compete directly for the same institutional order flow these established exchanges currently handle.
Real compliance questions remain unresolved too. Requirements like registration, KYC checks, and leverage limits do not map neatly onto Hyperliquid’s non-custodial, on-chain order book model, meaning meeting US regulatory standards could require real changes to how the platform fundamentally operates.
Ayesha Kiani, chief operating officer at Monarq Asset Management, framed the moment as evidence of how quickly things are shifting. “What’s notable isn’t just the price move but also that decentralized market infrastructure is increasingly entering mainstream policy conversations,” Kiani said.
Joshua Lim, global co-head of markets at FalconX, was more direct in his enthusiasm, calling Hyperliquid “the poster child for convergence,” the idea that traditional asset classes will increasingly be traded, margined, and settled around the clock on crypto rails.
What Comes Next
Selig’s promised update on Thursday, delivered alongside the CFTC’s first Innovation Advisory Committee session, is the next concrete milestone to watch; whether it offers specific regulatory terms or stays at the level of broad principles will shape how markets read Hyperliquid’s actual odds of a legal US launch.
The CFTC has already cleared some perpetual-style products domestically, approving Coinbase Derivatives and Kalshi to offer similar contracts starting in 2025, but bringing Hyperliquid itself onshore, rather than a regulated intermediary offering a similar product, remains a meaningfully different and more complex undertaking.
What this means for you: nothing here changes Hyperliquid’s current access restrictions for US users today, and Trump’s comments signal regulatory direction rather than an approved plan with a timeline. Given how sharply both HYPE and Hyperliquid Strategies already moved on a comment alone, expect continued volatility in both as Thursday’s committee meeting and any further regulatory detail arrive.
