Hyperliquid Strategies Applies for FCM License to Onshore Perps

A subsidiary of Hyperliquid Strategies, the Nasdaq-listed HYPE treasury company, has applied to register as a futures commission merchant (FCM), a filing-linked announcement in the company's quarterly results confirmed on Thursday. The move is intended to bring Hyperliquid-based perpetual futures to US customers.

The application, disclosed alongside results for the quarter ended Sept. 30, would position the subsidiary to handle US customer accounts for permissioned markets deployed on the Hyperliquid protocol. Both the FCM registration and the proposed markets require regulatory approval before launch.

"Owning HYPE is how we aim to capture economics associated with the Hyperliquid protocol; setting up an FCM is how we intend to help bring markets deployed on Hyperliquid onshore," CEO David Schamis said in the results statement.

What does the FCM application change for practitioners?

The mechanics run through Hyperliquid's HIP-3 framework, which allows independent operators to launch custom perpetual futures markets on the protocol's onchain infrastructure. The entry price is material: operators must stake 500,000 HYPE tokens, worth roughly $38.8 million at current valuations. Proposed HIP-3 features would let operators create permissioned markets that restrict participation to approved addresses — the compliance hook that makes a US-facing structure conceivable.

For US trading firms, the significance is straightforward. A registered FCM subsidiary could serve as the regulated intermediary for those permissioned markets, connecting American customer accounts to onchain perps that have until now operated outside the US perimeter. The structure remains contingent, but it sketches a path for compliant domestic access to Hyperliquid-style derivatives.

The competitive backdrop: ICE is already moving

Hyperliquid Strategies is not alone in pursuing this market. Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, announced an agreement with Trade[XYZ] on Oct. 29 to bring Hyperliquid-based perpetual markets to the US, subject to regulatory approvals. ICE plans to operate a dedicated market and clearing structure of its own.

That creates two parallel onshoring efforts: one exchange-led under ICE, one issuer-led under Hyperliquid Strategies' FCM subsidiary. Whether regulators permit both, one, or neither will shape how US market structure for onchain perpetuals forms over the coming cycle.

$785 million in HYPE purchases, $3.5 billion position

The quarterly results detail an aggressive capital deployment. Hyperliquid Strategies raised $911 million in equity capital during the quarter. It spent $785 million acquiring 9.1 million HYPE tokens — meaning the company committed roughly 86 cents of every dollar raised directly to token purchases.

The company also spent $17 million to repurchase 2.7 million PURR shares. As of Sept. 30, it held 38.5 million HYPE, valued at $3.5 billion at the time. That works out to an average of roughly $90.90 per token across the entire holding.

Schamis framed the strategy as fee-capture rather than speculation. "Hyperliquid is winning the parts of onchain finance that generate real fees, and nearly all of that value flows back to HYPE holders through programmatic buybacks," he said.

The equity market's verdict on the quarter was negative. Hyperliquid Strategies (PURR) shares fell 9.6% on Thursday, closing at $8.76, according to Yahoo Finance — a reminder that treasury-company valuations remain sensitive to both token exposure and secondary issuance.

What comes next

The binding constraint now sits with regulators. The FCM registration process and the proposed permissioned HIP-3 markets both require approval, and ICE's parallel structure faces the same gate. Approval of either would mark the first regulated US on-ramp for Hyperliquid-based perpetuals; rejection would leave the market offshore indefinitely.