On October 15, 2026, Hyperliquid founder Jeff Yan shared not a new product on the Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast but a radically different regulatory narrative: he believes that the regulatory obligations for cryptocurrency trading platforms in the United States should fall on financial institutions like Bitnomial and Kraken, which actually operate markets on the Hyperliquid blockchain, rather than on the underlying L1 network itself. He publicly called on U.S. regulators to classify Hyperliquid L1 as “infrastructure” rather than “exchange,” comparing himself to a conduit for compliant intermediaries on Wall Street instead of a platform facing retail users. In the context of U.S. regulators discussing how to bring offshore cryptocurrency platforms into the domestic system, this statement strikes at the heart of the controversy: should the chain itself bear all licensing and scrutiny, or should licensed institutions on the chain be responsible for user entry? According to Jeff Yan’s vision, U.S. users could access on-chain perpetual contracts through regulated intermediaries without having to complete the full exchange account opening process as they do on traditional centralized platforms, while Hyperliquid attempts to expand into Wall Street while avoiding the compliance burdens associated with being viewed as a full exchange; as of now, U.S. regulators have not given a clear response to this model of “infrastructure positioning + intermediary responsibility,” and this determination of “infrastructure or exchange” will become a key unresolved variable in deciding whether Hyperliquid, U.S. intermediary institutions, and local users can access on-chain derivatives within the regulatory lines.
Infrastructure is not an exchange: The dispute over liability separation
In the podcast interview on October 15, 2026, Jeff Yan compressed the core narrative of Hyperliquid into a single statement: Hyperliquid L1 should be viewed as “infrastructure,” not as an “exchange.” He intentionally separates the underlying blockchain from the institutional operations on-chain: one end is the technological layer responsible for running the network, and the other end is the financial institutions that actually serve U.S. users by opening and maintaining perpetual contract markets on-chain. According to his design, U.S. regulatory obligations—including who needs to obtain licenses, who should conduct customer due diligence, and who is directly responsible for trading activities—should fall on regulated intermediaries like Bitnomial and Kraken, not on the entities maintaining the Hyperliquid blockchain.
This concept of liability separation directly contrasts with U.S. regulators' attempts in recent years to bring offshore platforms into the domestic financial regulatory framework: the intuitions of regulators are to “first find the platforms that actually facilitate trades, provide leverage, and act as interfaces, then discuss regulation,” while Jeff Yan's proposal seeks to keep Hyperliquid safe within the realm of “technological infrastructure,” transferring the comprehensive compliance burden to intermediaries that are already within the U.S. licensing system. For intermediaries like Bitnomial and Kraken, this means that if they connect to Hyperliquid's on-chain perpetual contracts, they might need to assume additional market entry responsibilities under existing regulatory tools; for regulators, they need to redefine who the actual exchanges are in the combination of “offshore chain infrastructure + domestic regulated intermediaries.” Because this boundary has not yet been officially delineated by U.S. regulatory agencies, the positioning of Hyperliquid as infrastructure, the scope of responsibility of intermediary institutions, and whether U.S. users can legally access on-chain derivatives markets through domestic intermediaries are all suspended in this ongoing qualitative dispute.
Bitnomial and Kraken as bridges
In Jeff Yan's vision, U.S. users no longer log directly into a typical offshore cryptocurrency trading platform, but instead access the perpetual contract market on Hyperliquid via local licensed institutions like Bitnomial and Kraken. These intermediaries are described as the parties that actually operate markets on the Hyperliquid public chain: they are responsible for customer identification, risk control, and product design, reporting to U.S. regulators; while Hyperliquid L1 only provides the technical foundation for matching and settlement, not bearing the identity of an “exchange.” For U.S. users, this means they do not have to undergo the entire account opening process and confront a platform located outside the regulatory boundary, but can lock all their relationships with regulated intermediaries. It should be emphasized that Bitnomial and Kraken are currently only mentioned publicly as potential bridge entities, and it remains to be verified whether they have officially confirmed their involvement.
Because the bridging parties are licensed institutions, this structure is packaged as a form of “compliance innovation”: regulatory obligations are concentrated on local intermediaries, and U.S. regulators can review their products and risk control along existing paths, temporarily viewing on-chain infrastructure as a technical outsourcing. However, from another angle, this may also become a new avenue for “regulatory arbitrage”—the essence of the business is still U.S. funds entering a high-leverage on-chain derivatives market, just relocating the core contract matching and risk accumulation to an offshore public chain that calls itself “infrastructure.” Before assessing how much responsibility intermediaries like Bitnomial and Kraken are willing to take on and whether U.S. regulators will accept the logic of only regulating the bridge and not recognizing the underlying as an exchange, it remains uncertain whether this bridge model will be enshrined in rules as a compliance norm or regarded as a structure for evading regulation, still representing an unresolved regulatory watershed.
Washington focuses on offshore on-chain platforms
In recent years, discussions in Washington have gradually shifted from "how to regulate domestic exchanges" to a more thorny question: should on-chain platforms that provide high-leverage contracts to U.S. users and have servers and company registrations abroad also be incorporated into the U.S. financial regulatory system? Internally, regulatory agencies are formulating an overall framework—either viewing offshore platforms as trading places that require domestic licenses according to traditional securities and futures logic, or recognizing a new level of technology by treating the underlying on-chain networks separately from the financial intermediaries serving U.S. users. On October 15, 2026, Jeff Yan's statements on Bloomberg Odd Lots are evidently not isolated technical explanations but are directly embedded in this regulatory debate: he advocates for financial institutions operating markets on the Hyperliquid blockchain to bear U.S. regulatory obligations, while Hyperliquid L1 is merely recognized as “infrastructure,” effectively pre-delivering a set of answers more favorable to himself to the policy discussion tables in Washington.
In this setup, intermediaries like Bitnomial and Kraken are packaged as the “compliance buffer” between U.S. users and on-chain perpetual contracts, with opening accounts, risk control, and reporting obligations still borne by local institutions, while offshore on-chain matching itself remains as far from traditional exchange rules as possible. This hits on the most sensitive point for regulators currently: how to implement effective review and enforcement over cross-border on-chain derivatives. With contracts existing on public chains, counterparties crossing jurisdictions, and risks rolling over in real time on-chain, regulation must either extend downward to these underlying networks or accept Jeff Yan's proposed model of “only monitoring intermediaries operating markets on-chain.” So far, U.S. regulators have not formally responded or established rules regarding this initiative of “infrastructure positioning + intermediary responsibility,” which leaves Hyperliquid's aim to expand into Wall Street while evading the comprehensive compliance burdens of traditional exchanges in a state of ambiguity—whether seen as a constructive policy proposal or a carefully designed regulatory arbitrage structure remains suspended within the unfinished regulatory framework in Washington.
A new sample of compliance paths for on-chain derivatives
If regulators ultimately accept the “infrastructure positioning + regulated intermediary” model portrayed by Jeff Yan in the interview, the regulatory landscape for U.S. on-chain derivatives will be redrawn: the Hyperliquid L1 public chain will be viewed as a technological facility similar to routing and settlement layers, while the financial institutions operating specific markets on its chain will bear the actual U.S. regulatory obligations. This way, intermediaries like Bitnomial and Kraken, already within the regulatory focus, theoretically could treat Hyperliquid as underlying technology to mount their product lines, packaging on-chain perpetual contracts as compliant products of regulated intermediaries rather than simply being labeled as “offshore unregistered platform business.” The public chain will only be responsible for network security and protocol upgrades, while market-making institutions provide liquidity on-chain, and frontend platforms and licensed exchanges take on know-your-customer, market rules, and reporting obligations, shifting the entire chain of responsibility from “one massive platform must be responsible for all users” to “each intermediary opening and operating a market on-chain is responsible for its own clients and products.”
However, in the current absence of clear regulatory answers, this structure constitutes both an opportunity and a risk. For the platform, shifting compliance responsibilities to intermediaries operating markets on-chain can alleviate pressure to be recognized as an exchange while vying for Wall Street funds, yet it also means that if regulatory bodies insist on viewing public chains or overall platforms as exchange entities, Hyperliquid and similar projects could face more intense registration and scrutiny requirements; for traditional financial institutions, they gain a new entry to access on-chain perpetual contracts utilizing familiar compliance tools but must assess whether, post-rule implementation, they will bear the burdens of all actions and historical liabilities of the underlying chain; for U.S. users, accessing on-chain products through regulated intermediaries seems to evade the compliance friction of registering on offshore platforms, but until regulators clarify the definition of “who bears legal responsibility for these trades,” each confirmation click still represents a choice made in a boundary area of an unformed system.
Regulatory answers have yet to emerge
As of now, U.S. regulatory agencies have not provided any public official response to Jeff Yan's proposal on the podcast on October 15, 2026, which suggested “viewing Hyperliquid L1 as infrastructure rather than an exchange” and “having financial institutions operating markets on-chain assume U.S. regulatory obligations.” The timeline for advancing this model and possible legislative paths remains a total information void. The result is that all three parties are locked in an unresolved pattern: Hyperliquid seeks to expand into Wall Street while trying to avoid the comprehensive compliance burden of traditional exchanges but is unsure whether regulators will recognize this division of roles; intermediaries like Bitnomial and Kraken, expected to act as bridges, find it difficult to assess whether providing U.S. users with access to on-chain perpetual contracts means being solely responsible for their front-end compliance or carrying the joint risk for all market activities on the underlying chain; U.S. users face a technically feasible and publicly promoted access path to participation but are unable to determine whether future regulatory definitions may cause their current method of participation to be reassessed. What needs to be observed next is not the on-chain products themselves, but three regulatory main lines: whether U.S. regulators will provide a clear policy response or articulation of their stance, whether they will design a specialized licensing path covering “operating markets on Hyperliquid chain,” and whether other on-chain platforms will follow Hyperliquid’s infrastructure narrative, testing the same division model at the U.S. regulatory border. Before these critical answers materialize, Hyperliquid’s U.S. story remains suspended in the vision portrayed in a podcast interview, while the entire industry can only cautiously advance its next arrangement under the still-forming shadow of regulation.
Join our community, let's discuss, and get stronger together!
Exclusive Hyperliquid benefits for AiCoin: https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/join/AICOIN88
Exclusive Aster benefits for AiCoin: https://www.asterdex.com/zh-CN/referral/9C50e2
On-chain Telegram community: https://t.me/AiCoinWhaleData
On-chain community: https://www.aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=N6OVMor5g
AiCoin on-chain Twitter: https://x.com/aicoinwhaledata
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
