Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, is planning a US market for perpetual futures built on Hyperliquid, Bloomberg reported on October 29. According to the report, the proposed venue would run on Hyperliquid's rails with its own clearing, know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering systems, and remains subject to regulatory approval. HYPE, Hyperliquid's native token, rose nearly 8% on the news.

What ICE Is Buying, and Where HYPE Comes In

Bloomberg describes Trade.xyz as one of the market operators behind Hyperliquid. The firm lists perpetual futures tied to stocks, equity indices, commodities and currencies, and those are the products the planned US market would offer. According to executives at the firms, ICE is taking an equity stake in Trade.xyz as part of the agreement.

Trade.xyz operates its markets under Hyperliquid's HIP-3 framework, which lets outside teams launch their own perpetual markets while Hyperliquid runs the order books and margining. According to Hyperliquid's HIP-3 documentation, HYPE underpins that arrangement in three ways:

• The stake. A builder must keep 500,000 HYPE staked, locked for at least 183 days after launching. Validators can vote to slash that stake if the builder operates its markets in a way that harms the network, and slashed HYPE is burned.
• The fees. Trades on HIP-3 markets pay a protocol fee to Hyperliquid alongside the builder's own cut, which can be set between 0% and 300% of the base fee.
• The discounts. Traders who stake HYPE also receive the usual fee discounts on HIP-3 markets.

These ties run through Trade.xyz's existing offshore markets. Bloomberg says the US market will be built on Hyperliquid's rails, but it has not been made public whether its trades would run through HIP-3 and pay the same protocol fees. ICE is buying equity in Trade.xyz, not HYPE, and gains no ownership of the Hyperliquid network.

How HYPE Reacted

HYPE moved sharply after the news. From an intraday low of $78.22, the token climbed to $87.10, up 7.92% on the session, according to the HYPE/USDT daily chart at the time of writing.

The daily candle cut through the 50-day simple moving average at $84.87 and carried the price up to the 0.236 Fibonacci retracement near $86.9, measured from the $51 base to the $98 peak. Momentum turned with the price: the 14-day RSI climbed from the low 40s to 60.26, above its 42.10 signal line and the 50 midline, showing buyers took control of the session.

Based on the chart at the time of writing, the daily close pointed to three scenarios:

• Close above $86.97: A daily close above the 0.236 Fibonacci level would keep the price above both the 50-day SMA and the level where the earlier breakdown began, opening room toward a possible retest and the next levels.
• Close between $84.8 and $86.9: HYPE would hold the 50-day average without clearing the Fibonacci level, leaving the resistance zone unresolved.
• Close back below $84.8: If buyers cannot hold the 50-day average by the daily close, the move risks ending as an exhaustion wick, putting the 0.382 Fibonacci level near $80 back in focus as support.

Why ICE Is Moving Now

ICE runs some of the world's largest futures markets, but those venues close on schedule, while onchain platforms trade similar exposure around the clock. At a Bernstein conference on May 27, ICE chief executive Jeffrey Sprecher said the company had been asking regulators whether it could offer perpetuals, questioning why it was prohibited “when it’s already happening,” Benzinga reported.

How It Compares With Other US Routes

Trade.xyz's current markets are closed to Americans. In an August 26 filing with the CFTC, Trade.xyz and the Hyperliquid Policy Center said no Trade.xyz market was offered to US persons, citing geoblocking and wallet screening. Approval would be what first puts that product line in front of US customers.

What a Trader Would Need to Know

The plan still needs regulatory approval, and its value to US traders will come down to the specifics: which entity clears trades and holds customer collateral; whether the market shares liquidity with Trade.xyz's existing order books or starts its own; which contracts list first; and whether leverage, funding and collateral rules match the offshore version. The August CFTC filing addressed the offshore markets' handling of US persons and did not itself grant approval for a US venue.

For now, the deal puts one of the world's largest exchange groups behind the part of crypto trading that looks most like its own business, with HYPE sitting underneath it as the stake that keeps Trade.xyz's markets running.

This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Leveraged derivatives involve substantial risk.

Source: Coindoo