NYSE Parent ICE Teams Up With Hyperliquid, TradeXyz to Enter US Perpetual Futures Market

Intercontinental Exchange Inc., the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, is entering the perpetual futures market. Hyperliquid's HYPE token outperformed despite broader weakness across crypto after news of the partnership. The move may accelerate the adoption of perpetual futures across traditional finance, industry participants said.

ICE said on October 29 that it had signed a final agreement with TradeXyz to launch perpetual futures in the US. TradeXyz operates a market on Hyperliquid for perpetual futures tied to real-world assets such as stocks and commodities. ICE plans to launch the product using Hyperliquid's blockchain infrastructure and TradeXyz's real-world asset data.

As part of the partnership, ICE will also make a strategic investment in TradeXyz. Retail participation in the perpetual futures market is clearly increasing and the market is becoming more global, ICE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Sprecher said. He added that perpetual futures are not a replacement for the existing futures market, but a product that can complement and expand it.

The market reacted immediately. According to CoinMarketCap, Hyperliquid was trading near $93 on the day, up about 17.5% from a day earlier. The token climbed as high as $96 at one point, approaching its all-time high of $97.96 set in mid-September. The rally also helped Hyperliquid reclaim the No. 9 spot in overall cryptocurrency market capitalization, overtaking privacy coin Zcash.

"ICE Could Be a Catalyst for Mainstream Adoption"

Perpetual futures are a type of derivative found only in the crypto market. Unlike conventional futures contracts in traditional finance, they have no expiration date and track underlying assets such as Bitcoin through funding payments. In crypto, perpetual futures account for more than 70% of total trading volume. Bloomberg reported that the contracts have been particularly popular with retail investors seeking exposure to price swings in cryptocurrencies and commodities.

In the US, the market began to open up after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission allowed domestic listings of perpetual futures in May. Prediction market platform Kalshi and crypto exchange Coinbase currently lead the US perpetual futures market. President Donald Trump said in August that the CFTC was working to help Hyperliquid enter the US legally.

The industry is now watching how much impact ICE's entry will have on the market. Because the US perpetual futures market is still centered on crypto-native firms, ICE's experience operating the New York Stock Exchange could prove a differentiator.

Bok Jin-sol, research lead at Popilus, said ICE's experience running the NYSE could give it an edge in perpetual futures tied to traditional assets such as tokenized stocks and equity indexes. That expertise from operating a traditional exchange is also directly linked to liquidity and risk management, the core capabilities of a perpetual futures venue, Bok added.

Some in the industry also view ICE as a catalyst that could speed perpetual futures' entry into mainstream finance. With regulatory uncertainty easing, US traditional finance firms could begin entering the perpetual futures market one by one following ICE, an industry official said. In that case, ICE could become the turning point that helps perpetual futures establish themselves as a mainstream product in the derivatives market.