President Donald Trump said Wednesday that CFTC Chair Michael Selig is working to bring Hyperliquid, the largest on-chain venue for perpetual futures, into the United States in a "fully compliant and legal fashion," according to Unchained. The comment came during a White House meeting with crypto and technology executives.

The remark sent HYPE up as much as 25% over 24 hours, while three U.S. Hyperliquid funds—21Shares' THYP, Bitwise's BHYP, and Grayscale's HYPG—each rose close to 20% in Wednesday's session. Hyperliquid Strategies, the Nasdaq-listed treasury vehicle trading as PURR, gained 30.4%, its largest single-day gain on record, according to The Defiant.

Hyperliquid currently geoblocks users in the U.S. and Ontario, Canada, while the underlying protocol remains permissionless. Trump did not describe what an onshore version would look like, and no CFTC approval exists, Unchained reported.

Selig has previously signaled support for bringing on-chain venues under U.S. regulation. In a June interview with Bankless, he said on-chain technology of Hyperliquid's kind will "transform our markets" and that the agency wants a path to bring such venues into the U.S. under some form of regulation. The CFTC has already approved Kalshi's BTCPERP as the first true bitcoin perpetual on a regulated U.S. exchange in June and issued Coinbase Financial Markets a no-action letter to route customers into perps listed on its Bermuda arm, Unchained noted.

Hyperliquid has been preparing the ground for a domestic opening. The Hyper Foundation committed 1 million HYPE, worth roughly $29 million at the time, to launch the Hyperliquid Policy Center in Washington under Jake Chervinsky in February. In July, the group pushed back on broker rules for DeFi software in a comment letter to the CFTC. ICE chair Jeffrey Sprecher, who sat in Wednesday's White House meeting, disclosed in May that his company had held multiple meetings with Hyperliquid, according to Unchained.

Incumbent exchanges reacted negatively to the news. CME Group and Cboe Global Markets fell as much as 3.4% and 6.1% during the session before closing down 1.7% and 3.5%, The Defiant reported. CME and ICE had gone to regulators on May 15 over Hyperliquid's 24/7 on-chain oil perpetuals, arguing manipulation risk. CME later sued the CFTC over the Kalshi approval in June, a case that remains pending.

Options activity in Hyperliquid Strategies surged on Wednesday, with volume running nearly eight times its 30-day average. More than 120,000 call contracts traded against fewer than 8,000 puts, with about $10 million in premium spent, CNBC reported. One trade landed before Trump spoke, raising speculation about advance knowledge, though CNBC framed that as speculation, The Defiant noted.

No timetable has been set. The CFTC has not opened a public docket on Hyperliquid, no registration application has surfaced, and the mechanics of applying customer-protection, identity-verification and leverage rules to a venue that never takes custody of user funds remain unsettled, according to The Defiant. Selig is expected to provide more details at the CFTC's Innovation Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday, Coinpedia reported.