Intercontinental Exchange founder Jeff Sprecher said crypto-native venue Hyperliquid, a platform built by just 11 people, has grown bigger than Nasdaq.
Key Points:
- ICE chief Jeff Sprecher called Hyperliquid bigger than Nasdaq, a venue run by just 11 people.
- The praise lands as ICE and CME press US regulators to scrutinize the exchange.
- Hyperliquid's native token has climbed roughly 150% in 2026.
Hyperliquid Unsettles Wall Street
Sprecher made the remarks during a fireside chat at Bernstein's 42nd Annual Strategic Decisions Conference this week. He told the audience the decentralized exchange had drawn notice for trading oil on weekends, when traditional venues sit closed.
That off-hours trading, he said, has turned the platform into a source of price discovery during Middle East tensions.
ICE, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, has met the Hyperliquid team several times to find where their interests overlap. Sprecher cast reported approaches to US regulators as exploratory steps toward a level playing field in onchain perpetual futures, an arena he and rival CME want room to enter.
Rather than open energy markets all weekend, ICE plans to trade later on Fridays and reopen earlier on Mondays, shrinking the window when its oil venues stay dark.
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Sprecher Praises DeFi Founders
The ICE chief praised the people who built the exchange as extremely smart and called the operation a true DeFi venue. He said he loved the work, marveled at the fortunes it was minting, and wished he were young enough to attempt it himself.
The platform settles trades on a blockchain using stablecoins and offers leverage as high as 100:1, a mix Sprecher framed as both the appeal and the risk.
He flagged its SpaceX derivative as a likely test of whether private-market pricing on a DeFi venue matters to mainstream finance. Many institutional clients cannot trade on such offshore rails under internal rules, he noted, yet they still watch the prices formed there.
HYPE Token Extends Its Rally
The endorsement lands during a banner stretch for the exchange's fast-rising native token. Volumes and attention have surged since the SpaceX contract went live in mid-May.
HYPE (HYPE) set a record high of $64.27 on May 24.
The token has climbed roughly 150% in 2026, outrunning Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Hyperliquid launched a synthetic derivative tied to SpaceX on May 18, opening retail exposure ahead of the rocket maker's planned Jun. 12 listing at a targeted $1.8 trillion valuation.
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