Why would Kraken, which already has its own exchange, need to open a market on Hyperliquid? On the morning of October 27th, Hyperliquid officially announced the plans of Kraken's parent company, Payward: to deploy an on-chain perpetual contract market for US clients through HIP-3*. Why would a company with an existing exchange, brokerage business, and clearing system need to use another trading infrastructure? Let's look at how the two companies plan to collaborate. According to Payward's announced plan, Bitnomial will be responsible for creating, owning, and operating the market, as well as handling contract clearing and settlement; NinjaTrader Clearing will handle client accounts; and Hyperliquid will provide the on-chain order book and underlying trading infrastructure. Clients will open accounts through NinjaTrader and be whitelisted by both NinjaTrader and Bitnomial before trading these new contracts. Payward will retain client relationships and market operations, while Hyperliquid will provide the underlying trading capabilities. In the past, discussions about their competition often revolved around: which platform will traders put their money on, and who will steal whose users? Currently, a centralized financial platform can continue operating its own brand, customers, and products while choosing to use on-chain trading infrastructure. For users, the experience may remain familiar brokerage services; for the protocol, these transactions can become new usage demands. So, how large is HIP-3 now? According to data compiled as of 09:20 Beijing time on October 27th, HIP-3 has 165 active markets, with a trading volume of approximately $3.043 billion in the past 24 hours, accounting for approximately 38.8% of the combined trading volume of native perpetual markets and HIP-3. However, this business is highly concentrated. http://trade.xyz contributes approximately 97.9% of HIP-3's trading volume and approximately 97.4% of its open interest. In other words, HIP-3 already has considerable demand, but opening up deployment eligibility has not automatically brought about balanced competition. Being able to deploy a market and being able to attract users and retain liquidity are two different things. http://trade.xyz has already established its own product and liquidity advantages. For other deployers to enter the market, besides increasing the number of contracts, they also need to answer the question: Why would users trade here? Payward offers a different answer—customer channels and a regulated account system. Payward disclosed that at the end of Q2 2026, the group had 6.6 million accounts with funds, including sub-accounts; the total trading volume of its various products in that quarter was approximately $310 billion. This means that companies participating in this initiative already possess a number of accounts that actually hold funds and use trading services, as well as channels to reach these customers. In the past, on-chain products often required users to actively seek them out: understand the protocol, prepare their wallets, transfer assets, and then familiarize themselves with a new trading process. Institutional distribution is attempting to change this customer acquisition path. By integrating the on-chain marketplace into existing account, brokerage, and customer service systems, allowing products to reach users through existing channels, Hyperliquid can directly attract traders and also turn platforms that already have traders into its infrastructure clients. HIP-3 addresses the access issue in this collaboration by adding an optional on-chain whitelist for deployers. Operators needing to limit their customer base can manage participants in their own markets; existing markets remain unchanged. This design separates the infrastructure from the rules of specific products. The underlying layer can serve different operators, each of whom then decides which customers to serve, what contracts to offer, and how to manage the market based on their own business and regulatory requirements. Payward first announced its plans on September 16th. Today's announcement further clarifies this arrangement from Hyperliquid's perspective. The initial version of HIP-3 is currently on the testnet, and further network upgrades and regulatory approvals are required. Going forward, the business aspects will become more specific: Can Payward attract a group of customers who haven't previously used Hyperliquid's infrastructure? Can the new markets establish sufficiently deep order books? Will account opening, fund inflows and outflows, and the trading experience encourage users to continue using the service? Market making, product operations, and customer service are still necessary. Even using the same underlying technology, different deployment markets will have their own order books. Payward aims to convert its customer channels into real orders, trades, and open positions. For Hyperliquid, growth can expand from individual trading accounts to independent market-operating institutions. Hyperliquid's next opportunity may not only be attracting more people to trade, but also encouraging more platforms with existing clients to choose to operate their markets here. HYPE Hyperliquid Kraken