Blockchain analysis by Arkham indicates that North Korean hackers have laundered more than $30 million worth of Bitcoin through Hyperliquid over the past three weeks. The discovery arrives at a sensitive moment: President Donald Trump and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are working to bring the offshore derivatives exchange within the regulatory boundaries of the United States.

Arkham's findings sharpen an unresolved question: can a decentralized venue be brought under American regulation without inheriting the sanctions exposure and unlawful financial risk avoidance that permissionless DeFi was deliberately designed to sidestep?

Arkham's data lands as Hyperliquid courts Washington

As previously reported by Cryptopolitan and other media outlets, Hyperliquid faced similar criticism in December 2024 over wallets linked to North Korean parties. Hyperliquid stated at the time that no hacking had occurred and that no funds had vanished from user accounts. The new transactions show the association persists even as Hyperliquid grows more popular in the United States.

The actors at issue are widely attributed to Lazarus Group, the sanctions-designated North Korean cyber unit that Western governments and blockchain investigators have linked to some of the largest cryptocurrency thefts on record, including the February 2025 Bybit exchange breach that surpassed $1 billion. According to Chainalysis, the North Korean regime looted roughly $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2025, its most successful year on record, with the funds allegedly used to support its weapons programs. CertiK has estimated that the DPRK has stolen approximately $6.75 billion across 263 incidents since 2016. On August 11, the Royal United Services Institute published a report detailing how Pyongyang converts looted crypto into fiat currency to fund its programs, and called for stricter onboarding processes and information-sharing rules for virtual asset service providers.

A rental arrangement through Kraken's parent, not a purchase

Hyperliquid Labs is in discussions with Payward, the parent company of Kraken, over a U.S. strategy. Rather than acquiring a licensed exchange, the plan would allow American-registered traders to access certain Hyperliquid-related perpetual futures through Bitnomial, the CFTC-regulated clearinghouse operated by Payward. Payward has submitted the plan to the CFTC but has not yet received approval.

The structure echoes a broader pattern in which offshore crypto platforms reach U.S. users through licensed intermediaries rather than direct registration — a test case for how far existing derivatives rules can stretch around a protocol that runs on public blockchains. The Hyperliquid application itself would remain unavailable to U.S. users, and Bitnomial's registered users would have access to only a small portion of Hyperliquid's perpetual futures offering. Specific compliance levels within the app are unknown.

On May 1, Payward confirmed its completed acquisition of Bitnomial, valued at $550 million. The deal gave Payward access to Bitnomial's full derivatives stack, including a Futures Commission Merchant, a Designated Contract Market, and a Derivatives Clearing Organization, all registered with the CFTC.

The commercial logic runs through HYPE. Hyperliquid allocates 99% of protocol fees to its Assistance Fund, which automatically converts trading fees into HYPE. According to the project's documentation, the fund's HYPE is burned, permanently removing it from both circulating and total supply. An SEC filing by Hyperliquid Strategies stated that as of August 23, the fund had acquired and permanently removed 46.7 million HYPE, equal to 4.7% of the initial supply.

It remains unknown whether volume routed through Bitnomial would feed into this mechanism, and no details about the commercial agreement between Payward and Hyperliquid have been disclosed. A flat licensing fee versus a percentage of U.S. trading revenue would carry very different implications for HYPE investors. HYPE reached its all-time high of $86.71 on August 27, at a time when not a single U.S. trader was using the proposed route.

The perimeter question critics keep raising

At a White House meeting on August 19, Trump credited CFTC Chairman Michael Selig with playing an important role in making Hyperliquid's crypto trading platform "fully compliant and legal." The comment was followed by a spike of almost 17% in HYPE. Further reporting by Cryptopolitan indicates that CME Group and ICE also attended the meeting, though both firms have been urging regulators to investigate Hyperliquid over price manipulation and sanctions exposure.

That is the central tension: onshoring a decentralized platform requires customer verification, market surveillance, and sanctions screening — precisely the processes the DeFi sector is structured to minimize. Arkham's figures illustrate what those measures would need to uncover in the market.

Investor enthusiasm continues to grow regardless. Bitwise launched its spot Hyperliquid ETF, BHYP, on May 14, listing it on NYSE Arca with Anchorage Digital Banking serving as digital asset custodian.

What the CFTC proposal does and does not settle

The reported on-chain movements do not establish who controlled the receiving exchange accounts or whether the exchanges knew the funds were linked to Lazarus. CoinDesk also notes that public blockchain data cannot reveal all compliance actions taken after assets reach a centralized exchange. Hyperliquid has yet to publicly explain how its architecture could screen or block the Lazarus-linked wallets identified by Arkham.

A proposal is not a clearance. Hyperliquid and Payward declined to comment, and no final registration terms, timetable, or product-specific compliance framework has been made public. Payward has reportedly presented the basic structure to the CFTC, but final regulatory approval remains pending.

Until regulators act, onshoring remains a proposal — and the North Korean transfers remain a reminder of what supervisors would be signing up to police.