President Donald Trump's comments about regulating Hyperliquid triggered a surge in options trading and sharp price moves across crypto-linked assets on Wednesday, with some trades made before the announcement drawing scrutiny.
Around 3 p.m. ET, Trump said during a press conference that CFTC Chair Mike Selig "is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion." Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange known for "perpetual futures" trading, despite U.S. residents currently being barred from the platform.
Following the remarks, shares of Hyperliquid Strategies, the publicly traded treasury company holding Hype tokens, surged 30% before the closing bell, pushing its year-to-date gain past 163%. Hype, the token powering the exchange's blockchain settlement, jumped 18% to just below record highs. Meanwhile, shares of Cboe Global Markets fell 3.5%, Miami International Holdings dropped 3.1%, and CME Group slid 1.7%.
Unusual Options Activity
Options volume in Hyperliquid was nearly eight times the 30-day average, with more than 120,000 calls traded against under 8,000 puts. Traders bought almost 45,000 calls and sold 29,000, with about $10 million in premium changing hands. The largest single trades occurred roughly 30 minutes after the announcement, when someone bought 2,000 8-strike calls expiring in November and December for about $510,000.
- Just shy of $2 million in calls of various strikes and expiries traded before 3 p.m.
- Around 11 a.m., a trader spent $65,000 on 719 of the 8-strike calls expiring mid-October, paying 90 cents each against just 67 open positions.
- Those calls were worth $2.45 each by the close, putting the trader up about $111,000.
