TL;DR
- Hyperliquid Policy Council submitted its first regulatory response outside the U.S. to the European Commission’s consultation on the MiCA review.
- HPC proposes classifying perpetual futures under MiFID II based on their economic characteristics, regardless of whether they are executed on a public blockchain.
- The organization argues that onchain verifiability can meet regulatory transparency objectives without the need for additional parallel reporting.
Hyperliquid Policy Council (HPC) submitted to the European Commission its first regulatory response outside the United States, as part of the public consultation on the MiCA review.
The document proposes adapting existing rules to the growth of onchain markets rather than building an entirely new regulatory framework, with particular emphasis on perpetual futures, which sit at the center of its analysis.
Hyperliquid’s submission argues that MiCA and MiFID II already provide a sufficient foundation for regulating these products. According to the document, the classification of any financial instrument should depend on its economic characteristics and risks, not on the technological infrastructure on which it operates.
Under that criterion, perpetual futures should fall within the scope of MiFID II even when executed and settled on a public blockchain, a position that, according to HPC, is consistent with the current guidelines of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).
Hyperliquid: Perpetual Futures Should Fall Under the Existing MiFID II
HPC distinguishes these contracts from CFDs, noting that CFDs are bilateral agreements where the firm typically sets the price and takes the counterparty, while perpetual futures can be traded on order books against other participants. In onchain markets, trades, funding payments and liquidations are publicly recorded on a ledger verifiable by supervisors, researchers and market participants.
That structural transparency is one of the pillars of the proposal. Hyperliquid argues that information recorded on public blockchains could meet transparency and record-keeping objectives without requiring parallel reporting, which would reduce administrative burdens without sacrificing regulatory oversight.
Proposed Measures
The document includes five specific measures: confirming that perpetual futures fall under MiFID II regardless of where they are recorded; adapting their requirements to their specific characteristics; recognizing onchain verifiability as a compliance tool; facilitating European investors’ access to global liquidity; and clarifying that operating on a blockchain public does not in itself alter the regulatory classification of the product.
Hyperliquid also references developments in other jurisdictions. In May, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) allowed the listing of the first perpetual futures on a U.S. exchange. In February, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission published a specific framework for these products.
The organization presents those changes as a reference for the European Union to define its position without the need for new legislation, drawing on the interpretive powers that MiFID II and ESMA’s guidelines already provide.
