S&P 500 Index to Trade Nonstop as Owner Licenses Benchmark to Crypto Exchange Hyperliquid

S&P 500 to Trade Around the Clock for First Time in 67-Year History

• S&P Dow Jones Indices licenses flagship gauge to crypto exchange Hyperliquid for nonstop futures.
• Contract will settle against the cash index, giving traders 168-hour weekly access versus 32.5 hours in equities.
• Move accelerates Wall Street’s tokenization race as blockchain venues target $30 trn U.S. stock market.
• Hyperliquid already handles $1.8 B daily notional in crypto perpetuals; equity index launch slated within weeks.

Always-on derivatives could redraw volatility patterns and lure overnight liquidity from Asia

S&P 500—The owner of the world’s most-tracked equity benchmark has agreed to license the S&P 500 index for a derivative that never sleeps, licensing the gauge to crypto-native exchange Hyperliquid in a step that extends U.S. large-cap exposure to 24/7 trading for the first time since the index debuted in 1957.

The license, announced Thursday, covers a perpetual futures contract cash-settled to the S&P 500’s official closing level, allowing traders to obtain or hedge exposure during weekends, holidays and overnight hours when New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are shuttered.

S&P Dow Jones Indices, a unit of S&P Global Inc., declined to disclose financial terms but confirmed the deal is exclusive within the crypto-venue category for the initial launch phase, underscoring index owners’ willingness to embrace blockchain rails as traditional asset managers experiment with tokenization.

Why Index Owners Now Embrace Crypto Venues

For decades index providers guarded their benchmarks zealously, licensing only to regulated futures exchanges such as CME Group. The pivot toward crypto platforms signals a pragmatic shift: always-on markets capture order flow that otherwise leaks into offshore contracts or waits for Monday morning.

“Investors want hedges that match their actual risk windows,” said Tanvi Ratna, founder of policy consultancy Policy 4.0, who has advised Asian exchanges on digital-asset frameworks. “When Tesla earnings drop at 4:01 p.m. New York time on a Friday, a global fund sitting in Singapore can’t wait 65 hours to adjust delta.”

Hyperliquid, incorporated in the Cayman Islands and domiciled for trading purposes in Panama, has processed over $430 billion in notional crypto derivatives volume since early 2022, according to public dashboards reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The platform does not onboard U.S. persons, sidestepping Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight while still offering depth that rivals traditional venues.

Revenue upside for index licensors

Index providers typically earn basis-point fees on every dollar of notional linked to their trademarks. Industry executives familiar with similar crypto-venue deals tell the Journal that a marquee index can command 0.2–0.4 basis points annually, implying potential eight-figure income if Hyperliquid captures even 1% of CME’s E-mini S&P 500 futures volume.

“It’s found money,” said one senior banker who negotiated prior index-licensing agreements. “The index already exists; the provider merely rents the brand to a new distribution channel.”

By green-lighting 24/5 or 24/7 contracts, S&P Dow Jones Indices also future-proofs its relevance should tokenized equities migrate to blockchains, a scenario JPMorgan projects could affect $2 trillion of U.S. market capitalization within a decade.

The next frontier: Asian retail inflows during their evening hours, a segment CME cannot currently serve because its flagship E-mini contract halts each day at 4 p.m. Chicago time.

How Hyperliquid Built a $1.8 B Daily Crypto Derivatives Venue

Hyperliquid launched in private alpha during the first quarter of 2022, pitching itself as a decentralized perpetual-swap protocol running on a custom Layer-1 blockchain. Rather than matching orders off-chain like many crypto exchanges, the code executes fully on-chain, giving users cryptographic proof of reserves and trades.

Within six months the venue surpassed $1 billion in cumulative volume; by April 2024 daily notional exceeded $1.8 billion across more than 100 perpetual markets, placing it among the top five crypto derivatives venues globally, according to data aggregator CoinGlass.

Fees that undercut incumbents

Hyperliquid charges a 2.5 basis-point taker fee and zero maker fee, roughly one-tenth the blended cost of rolling an E-mini S&P future at CME once exchange and broker fees are tallied, traders told the Journal. The savings are possible because the platform avoids legacy clearing-house infrastructure and relies on automated market makers that post collateral in the exchange’s native HLP token.

“Cost compression is the hook,” said David Goldsmith, a former Citadel Securities executive who now advises digital-asset startups. “If you can save five bucks per contract, high-frequency shops will route flow even if the regulatory wrapper looks unfamiliar.”

The exchange has so far avoided hacks or major outages, but its short track record still prompts risk officers at traditional funds to steer clear. Only about 14% of Hyperliquid’s current user base identifies as institutional, platform surveys show, compared with roughly 45% at CME.

Still, 24/7 access gives crypto-native hedge funds such as Jump Crypto and Wintermute a venue to manage index exposure while maintaining delta-neutral positions across Bitcoin, Ether and now U.S. equities.

Hyperliquid declined to name market-making partners for the S&P product, but people familiar with the plans said at least two Chicago-based high-frequency traders have committed liquidity ahead of launch.

Could 24/7 Futures Shake Up Market Volatility?

Academic studies show that restricting trading hours concentrates volatility: when markets reopen, prices gap to reflect information accumulated while they were closed. A 2023 paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that overnight news explains 62% of Monday morning S&P 500 gap moves since 2009.

Round-the-clock contracts could smooth those jumps by letting traders price new information in real time, but they also risk thinner liquidity windows that amplify swings.

Precedent from FX and crypto

Foreign-exchange markets, open 24 hours, exhibit lower intraday volatility than equities but still witness sharp moves during thin periods—witness the 2015 Swiss franc spike that moved 30% in minutes. Bitcoin’s weekend gaps, while less frequent than a decade ago, still exceed 3% on average, according to Coin Metrics.

“The lesson is that continuous markets don’t eliminate volatility; they redistribute it,” said crypto-market economist Noelle Acheson, former head of research at CoinDesk. “You trade gap risk for occasional liquidity vacuums.”

Market-makers on Hyperliquid will quote as tight as 0.01% during New York hours, sources say, but spreads could widen to 0.08% on Saturday nights when fewer participants are online. That compares with an average 0.02% spread on CME’s E-mini during overnight UTC hours.

Portfolio managers at two U.S. mutual funds told the Journal they will treat the new contract as a hedging tool rather than a return driver, wary of basis risk if the perpetual deviates from the underlying index.

Still, the mere existence of a 24/5 S&P future reduces the penalty for holding exposure over weekends, potentially encouraging more swing trading and raising average turnover.

Tokenized Equities: The $30 Trillion Pipe Dream

Wall Street’s 24/7 push is merely the gateway to a bigger ambition: representing actual shares as blockchain tokens that can settle instantly and trade globally. JPMorgan estimates tokenized U.S. equities could reach $2 trillion, or roughly 7% of current market cap, within ten years, slashing back-office costs and collateral requirements.

BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and WisdomTree have already tested tokenized Treasury funds on public blockchains, while DTCC is building a “Project Ion” parallel settlement system scheduled for full rollout in 2025.

Regulatory hurdles remain

The Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to bless a fully decentralized venue for tokenized Apple or Microsoft shares. Chair Gary Gensler reiterated last month that any platform matching orders in security tokens must register as an exchange, a stance that could deter large brokers from routing flow to crypto venues.

“The S&P futures license is a low-risk toe in the water,” said Lee Reiners, a former Federal Reserve analyst who lectures at Duke Law. “Regulators view derivatives as contracts, not securities, so the approval path is clearer.”

If trading volumes build, index owners could follow with tokenized index funds, a move S&P Dow Jones Indices said it “continues to evaluate” in response to Journal questions.

Asset managers eye cost savings: continuous markets reduce cash drag from market closures and could let exchange-traded funds offer intraday creations at 3 a.m. New York time, catering to Asia-based authorized participants.

The endgame, bankers say, is a single global pool where a pension fund in Zurich can swap tokenized S&P exposure for tokenized European sovereign debt without waiting for either jurisdiction to open.

What Happens Next?

Hyperliquid aims to list the S&P perpetual within weeks, pending final risk-engine audits. If volume surpasses $100 million daily, competitors such as dYdX or Drift Protocol are likely to seek similar licenses, industry executives predict. CME Group, whose E-mini controls 98% of listed U.S. equity-index futures open interest, has already surveyed clients on 24/5 hours, though no timetable has been set.

The Asia angle

More than 40% of global equity inflows now originate from Asian investors, according to EPFR data, yet their peak activity window—Sunday night U.S. time—lacks regulated index futures. S&P’s licensing move could capture that flow before regional exchanges in Singapore or Hong Kong replicate the product.

Regulators in the British Virgin Islands and Panama, where Hyperliquid’s legal entities reside, have signaled they will not interfere provided the product is marketed offshore. Still, any large default could invite scrutiny from the SEC or CFTC under extraterritorial provisions.

Index providers stand to gain regardless: each new venue expands the royalty base without cannibalizing existing licenses. S&P Dow Jones Indices licenses the benchmark to more than 50 exchanges worldwide and earns an estimated $450 million annually from index fees, people familiar with the unit’s finances said.

For traditional investors, the takeaway is clear: the calendar clock no longer governs when U.S. large-cap risk can be managed. As tokenization spreads, the line between equity and crypto market structure may blur until both operate on the same always-on rails.