Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, has agreed with Trade[XYZ] to operate a new US-regulated market for perpetual futures built on Hyperliquid's infrastructure. ICE is also taking an undisclosed minority stake in Trade[XYZ]. The planned ICE[XYZ] venue aims to offer round-the-clock contracts on crypto assets, equities, indices, commodities and currencies. It depends on approval from the CFTC and other authorities, and no launch date was announced.

What it means: Perpetual futures, derivatives with no expiry date, are the most popular product in crypto markets, but until now they have mostly traded on platforms outside the US or on decentralised systems such as Hyperliquid. A deal with one of the world's largest exchange operators means technology from a decentralised network moves into a regulated setting, with supervision, investor protection rules and clearing. It is a sign that traditional exchanges do not want to leave round-the-clock trading and crypto products to new competitors. The plan to cover equities, commodities and currencies as well shows the model may extend beyond crypto. In Europe, crypto perpetuals are financial instruments under MiFID II rather than MiCA, and ESMA has voiced concerns about selling them to retail clients because of high leverage. For Greek investors, access to such products will continue to run through licensed European investment firms. The key question is how quickly the CFTC will approve it.

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