Intercontinental Exchange founder and CEO Jeff Sprecher said crypto-native exchange Hyperliquid has become impossible for traditional market operators to ignore, pointing to its weekend oil trading, stablecoin settlement, high leverage and retail-driven price discovery as signs of a broader shift in global markets.
Speaking in a Bernstein presentation excerpt dated May 27, 2026, Sprecher said ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has been watching Hyperliquid closely as the decentralized platform moves into markets historically dominated by traditional venues. He said he had met with the Hyperliquid team several times to discuss what the platform is building, what ICE is doing, and where the two may have overlapping interests.
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“First of all, we know them well, and I’ve met with them a number of times personally and to talk about what they’re doing, what we’re doing, where there may be some common overlap that we can work on,” Sprecher said. “They have gotten attention because they’ve been trading oil on the weekends when our traditional oil markets are closed. And it just so happens in this time of conflict in the Middle East, there has been a lot of activity that happens, a lot of decisions and things happen on the weekend.”
That weekend activity, he said, has made Hyperliquid relevant not only as a crypto venue but as a source of off-hours price discovery for markets that still operate on more limited traditional schedules. ICE’s response, according to Sprecher, will not be to keep oil markets open through the entire weekend after pushback from major oil companies. Instead, he said ICE plans to extend trading very late on Friday and reopen very early on Monday, effectively narrowing the window in which traditional oil markets are closed.
Sprecher framed the issue as a “wake-up call” for the industry. Many institutional energy clients, he said, are not trading on blockchain-based foreign venues and may not be permitted to do so under internal controls. Still, they are watching the activity and the prices formed there.
“They’re all watching it, and they’re watching the price discovery,” Sprecher said. “And whether they admit it or not, it is being part of the zeitgeist of when our markets do open, really early on Monday.”
The ICE chief also focused on Hyperliquid’s broader market structure. He described the platform as “a true DeFi exchange” that settles on blockchain rails, uses stablecoins and has attracted market makers and early adopters who would otherwise be active in traditional markets. He also highlighted the risks attached to its leverage model.
“It is on a blockchain. It is settled with stablecoins, algorithmically settled. It has very high margining. You can have up to 100:1 leverage, which is part of the allure.”
Sprecher said the platform’s listing of a derivative tied to SpaceX could become a test case for whether private-market price discovery on a DeFi venue matters to the broader financial system. He said market participants and regulators would soon be able to judge whether the price formed on Hyperliquid was “irrelevant” or “highly relevant” once the company goes public, according to the excerpt.
The most striking part of Sprecher’s remarks came near the end of the exchange, when he openly praised Hyperliquid’s builders and compared the platform’s scale to Nasdaq, though the excerpt did not specify the metric behind that comparison.
“I love that. I wish I was younger and doing it,” Sprecher said. “By the way, the number of billionaires that are being created doing this. This Hyperliquid that we’re talking — if you haven’t heard about it, it’s bigger than Nasdaq, okay? It’s 11 people.”
That tension is already visible in Washington. Before Sprecher’s Bernstein remarks surfaced, ICE and CME pressed US officials to scrutinize Hyperliquid’s role in offshore, oil-linked trading, arguing that anonymous 24/7 markets could affect price discovery in commodities and create risks around manipulation or sanctions evasion.
Hyperliquid has pushed back on that framing, arguing that continuous onchain markets reduce rather than increase market risk. The split leaves Sprecher’s comments with a sharper edge: ICE may admire what Hyperliquid has built, but the platform’s rise is also forcing legacy exchanges to decide whether to compete with crypto-native market structure, lobby against it, or try to absorb parts of it into regulated venues.
At press time, HYPE traded at $61.526.
