Hyperliquid Policy Center Responds To ICE, CME’s Regulatory Pressure Push

The Washington, D.C.-based policy team for decentralized exchange Hyperliquid (HYPE) has moved quickly to address a new regulatory pressure campaign described in a Friday report by Bloomberg. 

CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) are reportedly lobbying the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and US lawmakers to push for federal oversight of the platform, arguing that its current operating environment could be vulnerable to issues such as market manipulation and sanctions evasion.

CME And ICE Urge Hyperliquid CFTC Registration

The exchanges’ concerns, as framed in the reporting, center on how Hyperliquid trades and where those trades take place. CME and ICE reportedly worry that the platform’s growing trading volumes in crypto and commodity-linked markets could begin to affect price discovery in industries where benchmarks matter, including oil. 

They argue that anonymous trading settings may allow actors with private information—or participants tied to insider or state-linked influence—to distort prices that are used across markets.

CME and ICE’s stated ask, per Bloomberg, is straightforward: Hyperliquid should register with the CFTC. That registration would typically require the platform to adopt customer identification programs and implement trade surveillance measures. 

However, those requirements appear to clash with Hyperliquid’s current approach, which relies on an anonymous trading model by design.

In response, the Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC), led by CEO Jake Chervisnky, pushed back publicly. On social media site X (formerly Twitter), the recently established organization affirmed the criticisms are “unfounded.” 

The ‘Anti-Manipulation Shield’

The HPC argued that Hyperliquid offers a higher level of transparency than traditional venues precisely because it publishes a complete on-chain record of every transaction in real time. 

In the policy center’s view, that level of visibility makes it a hostile environment for insider trading or price manipulation, while also giving regulators and law enforcement clearer material for surveillance, detection, and investigation.

The policy center also emphasized that Hyperliquid runs 24/7 trading, describing this as an efficiency upgrade rather than a disruption. Because trading is continuous, prices move even when conventional exchanges are closed, reducing the gaps and discontinuities that can occur between traditional market sessions. 

The Hyperliquid Policy Center also said Bloomberg is broadly right about one key point: US law is not yet tailored to derivatives markets operating on public blockchains like Hyperliquid. The group said it plans to keep working with policymakers in Washington to bring on-chain markets inside the regulatory perimeter. 

Other reporting, including a piece by The Defiant, has described the lobbying move as potentially self-interested. The report notes that CME is pursuing expansion of its own 24/7 crypto trading capabilities, including Bitcoin Volatility Futures scheduled to begin trading on June 1, and Nasdaq CME Crypto Index Futures—covering BTC, ETH, XRP, and other assets—set to launch on June 8. 

At the time of writing, Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, was trading at $44.60. This represented gains of 1.6% and almost 4% in the 24-hour and seven-day time frames, respectively. 

Featured image created with OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com