Trade.xyz Founder Open Letter: My Goals and the Past 381 Days

Author: shoku, Founder of Trade.xyz

Compiled by: Jiahua, ChainCatcher

381 days ago, trade[XYZ] launched its first market on Hyperliquid. Today, we are partnering with ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, to bring perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid to the regulated market in the United States.

I usually don’t write long articles, but today is worth reflecting on and considering.

For years, builders across the industry have been working hard to prove that open on-chain markets can achieve price discovery, manage risk, and withstand market pressure to the standards of traditional market infrastructure, while remaining open at times and places where traditional markets cannot trade.

Our achievements are built on the efforts of these builders. Today, the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange chooses to continue building on the results created by developers, traders, market makers, and users. It is your willingness to believe in us and in these markets that we are eager to share this moment with you.

Markets are shaped by participants. The new generation of investors trades via mobile phones, engaging in various asset classes with trading demands at any time of the day, seven days a week. Before Hyperliquid emerged, there was no infrastructure suitable for these markets.

Building these markets is not easy. We need to find new ways for pricing, funding rates, and risk management, continuously testing and refining with real money in a market that never closes; we also need to earn the trust of traders. The community has recognized our efforts and responded, for which we are deeply honored.

It is this trust that has allowed us to increase trading volume to an annualized level of approximately $1 trillion over the past year, helping to pioneer new products such as perpetual contracts for pre-IPO companies, and earning the trust of historically significant institutions like S&P Dow Jones Indices. This is also why ICE chose trade[XYZ] as its exclusive partner to bring around-the-clock perpetual contracts to the United States.

Technological change has been driving the market to become more transparent, price discovery more efficient, and participation channels more extensive. From cafes to street exchanges, from stock ticker tape to telephones, from trading floors to digital exchanges, the market continues to evolve.

ICE has participated in writing a recent chapter of history. In 1997, Jeff Sprecher bought a small power trading technology company for $1. In 2000, ICE was established as an electronic energy trading market, subsequently driving the digitization of major commodity markets, and acquired the New York Stock Exchange in 2013. It is this pursuit of innovation that has fueled ICE's rapid growth. This is the kind of partner we want: looking to the future and embracing progress.

Americans should be able to participate in the most innovative markets in the world while receiving the protections provided by U.S. regulation. Once regulatory approval is obtained, trade[XYZ] and ICE can offer them both.

Change is not just about adding another channel for market participation. Perpetual contracts have no expiration date, allowing traders to avoid regular position rollovers, and liquidity for the same asset can be concentrated in a deep market. Cross-margining allows the same collateral to support multiple positions in stocks, commodities, and crypto assets, improving capital efficiency. Supporting all of this are atomic clearing and settlement, real-time risk management that allows the market to operate continuously, and rules that are verifiable and uniformly applicable to everyone. This is the new chapter we will write together.

Now, my responsibility, and our responsibility, is to build a market worthy of the trust of our partners and users. Our commitment will not change: to maintain a fair and transparent market, provide a diverse trading market, reduce trading execution costs, and most importantly, uphold the integrity of the market.

We do all this for one goal:

A comprehensive exchange open to the U.S. market, 24/7.

We are proud that trade[XYZ] has launched over 100 markets. But compared to future opportunities, we are just getting started. There are many assets yet to be covered, and many things people want to trade that currently lack mature markets. As long as there is trading demand for an asset, we hope trade[XYZ] can become its price discovery venue. Global stocks, commodities, bonds, pre-IPO companies, computing power, new indices, digital assets, interest rates, stock baskets, volatility products, alternative assets… trade anything, at any time, anywhere.

Ultimately, all the assets you own should be able to work in synergy with everything you trade. Imagine a significant news event breaking on a Saturday night. You should be able to use tokenized stocks as collateral, hedge your portfolio with index perpetual contracts, increase your exposure to oil, and express your trading view on a company that has not yet gone public. All operations are completed within one account, supported by the same risk management system, and all occur before traditional markets open. trade[XYZ] and Hyperliquid were born for this purpose.

I hope that many years from now, when someone opens their first investment account, they will find these features commonplace and even wonder why their predecessors had to deal with so many different financial institutions. Achieving this requires liquidity, reliability, trust, and prices that people can believe in. This will take many years, and I am ready to invest that time.

Finally, I want to express some gratitude.

First, thanks to the XYZ team: thank you for countless tireless nights, and for choosing to contribute to this vision before it was widely recognized.

Thanks to Jeff Sprecher and ICE, especially Michael Blaugrund and Trabue Bland for their ongoing support: you are a world-class team that embraces technology and proves that innovation and scale are not mutually exclusive.

Thanks to Stan Druckenmiller: thank you for your collaboration and for helping us turn a new page.

Thanks to Hyperliquid Labs: you are the best partners we could hope for. You have set a standard that is nearly impossible to reach, and we have been striving to catch up. @chameleonjeff, @iliensinc, @xulianhl.

Most importantly, thank you to our users: when no one thought these markets were important, you participated in trading.

Did you know? These trades are indeed very important.