CFTC Clears Kalshi Perp, ICE Praises Hyperliquid

These are today’s biggest stories:

Two weeks ago, CME and ICE were lobbying US regulators to crack down on Hyperliquid. Today, ICE chairman Jeffrey Sprecher called it "bigger than Nasdaq" from a Bernstein stage, and HYPE ripped nearly 10%, to its all-time high.

Bulls popped the champagne.

On the same morning, the CFTC approved Kalshi's BTCPERP, the first bitcoin perpetual on a registered US exchange, and cleared Coinbase to route American customers into its offshore Deribit affiliate. Chairman Selig called it the US becoming "the crypto capital of the world." In short: regulated perpetuals are now legal onshore.

The thing the bulls are toasting is the arrival of their own competition.

Hyperliquid's deepest (not only) moat has always been regulatory arbitrage. Perps are crypto's most-traded product, and also a product US traders couldn't legally touch at home. Hyperliquid won by running the best venue in a market the incumbents were barred from entering. The CFTC just unlocked that door.

Kalshi's BTCPERP runs the same funding-rate mechanism Hyperliquid, Binance, and Bybit have used since 2018. The regulated wrapper bolts on KYC, surveillance reporting, and registered-exchange cover, and now a compliant onshore venue exists for exactly the cohort Hyperliquid couldn't openly serve.

So re-read Sprecher's "compliment," this time as a competitor's field note. He asked regulators for a "level playing field." He's met the founders "multiple times." He says each side is "learning what the other does." He admitted ICE is narrowing its own weekend trading gap because Hyperliquid was eating its off-hours oil business during the Middle East flare-up. That is admiration, but it’s also clearly reconnaissance from a very large incumbent.

To be fair to the bulls: this doesn't kill Hyperliquid. The properties that won it the decentralized-perp lead (composability, permissionless access, onchain collateral) stay on the DeFi-native side, and the regulated frame would have to surrender its compliance cover to match them.

The two regimes can grow alongside each other: Hyperliquid keeps the degens; Kalshi and Coinbase take the institutions.

But that's a market with bigger competitors in it now.

With love,

Cami, founder of The Defiant

Read more below!

Nexo is a digital wealth platform offering crypto yield up to 15% and crypto-backed credit lines from 1.9%. Join and get 30-day access to exclusive rates. Terms apply.

WATCH

🟢 LIVE: Is it Over for DeFi?? w/ Kraken, Veda, Sentora

Camila Russo sits with John Zettler, product director at Kraken; Sun Raghupathi, co-founder and CEO of Veda; and Anthony de Martino, co-founder and CEO of Sentora — the team behind the new Kraken Bitcoin Vault that routes BTC to Morpho and Aave — on whether the recent string of exploits has changed what institutional DeFi exposure looks like.

REGULATION

CFTC Approves First US-Regulated Bitcoin Perpetual Futures

The CFTC approved Kalshi's BTCPERP contract — the first bitcoin perpetual on a registered US exchange — and in a separate same-day action cleared Coinbase to route customers to its offshore Deribit affiliate. The combined moves open an onshore path for a product the US regulatory regime had pushed offshore for years and raise the competitive stakes for dominant offshore venues like Hyperliquid and Binance. Kalshi's BTCPERP is structured around the same perpetual-futures funding-rate mechanism that has driven crypto-native venues since 2018.

Why this matters: The approval lands two weeks after CME and ICE were lobbying US regulators to crack down on Hyperliquid. The CFTC's path forward is regulating perpetuals, not blocking them, which removes a structural drag on the US-listed crypto-derivatives market and brings the largest perpetuals volume back under regulator visibility. Expect Robinhood, Interactive Brokers, and the major US futures venues to file BTC perp products inside 90 days.

DEFI

ICE Chief Sprecher Calls Hyperliquid 'Bigger Than Nasdaq' as HYPE Run Draws TradFi Notice

Jeffrey Sprecher, founder and chairman of Intercontinental Exchange — the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange — publicly praised Hyperliquid and its SpaceX pre-IPO market, calling the decentralized exchange 'bigger than Nasdaq' in volume terms. The remarks landed even as ICE continues pressing US regulators on how perpetuals should be policed — a position that two weeks ago read as adversarial. HYPE traded up 12% on the week as TradFi attention concentrated on the platform.

Why this matters: Sprecher's framing reads as TradFi's largest exchange operator publicly acknowledging that a permissionless venue is now a competitive peer. ICE has spent a decade building NYSE into the regulated equivalent of what Hyperliquid is becoming permissionlessly. Praise this specific is rare from incumbents and usually signals strategic intent — likely acquisition, partnership, or product replication. Hyperliquid sits in the second category of TradFi-relevant crypto venues now, with Coinbase.

BLOCKCHAINS

Arbitrum Foundation Seeks $45M Funding as Delegates Question Spending Above DAO Revenue

The Arbitrum Foundation filed a multi-part proposal asking the Arbitrum DAO for $16 million in stablecoins, 1,740 ETH, and 230 million ARB — roughly $45 million at current prices — to fund another year of operations. Delegates and analysts have flagged that the ask outpaces what the Arbitrum sequencer earns in fees and contains no quantitative performance milestones. The first vote opens this week, with several major delegates publicly signaling they will vote against unless the Foundation revises the proposal to tie disbursement to measurable network outcomes.

Why this matters: The proposal becomes a referendum on what L2 foundations are for. Arbitrum's sequencer is one of the largest revenue-producing L2 operations in DeFi, giving the DAO real negotiation leverage. The result lands against the Aave-DAO and Jito patterns of routing more value to token holders — and sets the accountability bar every other L2 foundation will face in their next funding cycle.

BLOCKCHAINS

Sui Restarts After Back-to-Back Mainnet Halts Tied to Software Bug

Sui restarted its mainnet after two consecutive halts over 48 hours, which the protocol attributed to a software bug in its 1.72 upgrade. Validators deployed a permanent fix in coordination with the Sui Foundation, and the chain resumed block production. SUI slid roughly 15% over the past seven days as the reliability issue surfaced during a period of broader market weakness.

Why this matters: Mainnet halts at L1 layer remain a credibility problem for high-throughput chains that target institutional and payments use cases. Solana's halt history is the canonical example; Sui has now joined the list of chains that ship upgrades and discover bugs in production. The fix was applied quickly, but the second halt within 48 hours sets a baseline expectation for upgrade rigor that the chain will be measured against in future cycles.