Jake Chervinsky, chief executive of the Hyperliquid Policy Center, said Tuesday at Digital Asset Summit 2026 Asia in Singapore that every exchange will need to integrate public blockchain infrastructure within the next 10 years or risk losing competitiveness. He said that applies not only to crypto-native venues such as Coinbase and Kraken, but also to traditional operators including CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE.
Hyperliquid is pitching itself as infrastructure, not an exchange
Chervinsky said Hyperliquid should be viewed as infrastructure that exchanges can use, rather than as an exchange itself. He compared the protocol to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana, arguing that public blockchains do not need to register as exchanges because they function as base-layer technology, while the actual trading interface should be provided by compliant entities built on top.
“Hyperliquid is not trying to compete with Kalshi, Coinbase, Robinhood, or CME. Hyperliquid sits one layer lower in the technology stack. It is technology they can use to improve their products,” Chervinsky said.
His broader argument was that the financial system will eventually upgrade its technical foundation and use public blockchains as underlying infrastructure. If that happens, he said, every exchange people can think of, whether crypto-native or traditional, will need to adopt that technology to remain competitive.
Payward’s September announcement gave that thesis a live example
Chervinsky’s remarks came after Payward, Kraken’s parent company, said in September that it would deploy a U.S.-compliant perpetuals market on Hyperliquid. Under that structure, Bitnomial, the CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse acquired by Payward, would handle contract creation and clearing, while NinjaTrader Clearing would provide account custody.
The setup is designed to avoid the core regulatory question of whether a public blockchain itself must register as an exchange. In this model, regulated financial entities at the top layer take on the compliance burden, while Hyperliquid’s on-chain infrastructure executes the trades underneath.
Chervinsky says the U.S. path is already opening
He said U.S. regulators have already allowed registered exchanges to offer crypto perpetual contracts to domestic customers. In August 2026, President Trump publicly instructed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, to “bring Hyperliquid onshore in the United States in a compliant way.” Before that, the CFTC had already cleared a path for Kalshi to offer regulated perpetual futures to U.S. customers.
What regulators have not yet approved, he said, is the underlying on-chain infrastructure itself. Chervinsky said he believes that step will come “in the near future.”
“There is no question that regulators are working to bring on-chain markets into the United States,” he said. “I respect that they are approaching this in a systematic and thoughtful way. This is not simple.”
He said bringing on-chain markets into the regulatory perimeter would offer clear benefits: a shared public ledger and decentralization can improve resilience, security and transparency, while lower costs and faster execution can improve existing market systems.
Chervinsky also said the next regulatory step would be expanding perpetual contracts to other underlying assets. Oil and metals are already among the most active markets on Hyperliquid, he said, and agricultural contracts are part of that mix as well.
CME’s lawsuit is “a delay tactic,” he says
Chervinsky also commented on CME Group’s lawsuit filed in June. CME sued the CFTC in an effort to overturn the regulator’s earlier decision to approve perpetual contracts as futures products, arguing that those contracts should instead be classified as swaps.
“If you choose not to compete, you cannot complain about competition you decided not to enter,” Chervinsky said. He argued that perpetual contracts have not taken volume away from CME’s existing dated futures business, but instead represent a new and separate market that exchanges can choose to enter or ignore.
“I think this is purely CME trying to slow things down because they are not yet ready to take advantage of this development. This is a delay tactic,” he said.
He also referred to CME’s recent decision to withdraw its plan for around-the-clock energy futures. CME said the reason was “staffing issues,” but Chervinsky rejected that explanation. “I do not think this is a staffing issue. I think CME moved too aggressively and did not understand real demand in the energy industry for 24/7 trading,” he said.