Hyperliquid Strategies’ $620.6M quarter is paper HYPE gains, and it wants a CFTC license to change that

Hyperliquid Strategies (PURR), the Nasdaq-listed HYPE treasury firm, reported $620.6 million in third-quarter net income on November 5, 2026, but almost none of it came from running a business. The quarter’s profit was driven by $803 million in unrealized gains on its HYPE token holdings, partially offset by a $172.3 million income tax provision, the company said in its results release for the period ended September 30, 2026.

Actual operating revenue told a different story: $13.3 million for the quarter, which beat analyst estimates ranging from $10.6 million to $12 million depending on the data provider. The gap between that revenue line and the nine-figure net income is the defining feature of a treasury company, whose results track the price of a single token rather than the strength of its operations. HYPE fell 7.28% on the day the results were published, November 5, a reminder that those paper gains move in both directions.

An FCM filing points toward fee revenue

Buried in the same release, Hyperliquid Strategies disclosed that it has filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to register as a futures commission merchant, the regulated intermediary that holds customer accounts and executes trades in futures markets. The company said the goal is to carry US client accounts for HIP-3 markets, the framework that lets outside parties build and launch permissioned markets on the Hyperliquid perpetuals protocol.

“There can be no assurance as to the timing or outcome of the application or regulatory approval of permissioned HIP-3 markets,” the company cautioned in the release.

If approved, the registration would give the firm a regulated, fee-generating revenue stream that does not depend on the HYPE price. It would also differ from the template set in late October by Payward, Kraken’s parent company, which became the first CFTC-regulated deployer on the HIP-3 variant tied to CFTC-regulated deployments and planned to route deployments through its Bitnomial subsidiary with NinjaTrader Clearing serving as the outside FCM. Hyperliquid Strategies instead wants to hold the accounts itself.

Two weeks of US regulatory convergence

The filing lands amid a rapid US institutional push onto Hyperliquid. ICE, the NYSE’s parent, agreed last week to partner with TradeXYZ to bring Hyperliquid-based perpetual futures to US traders, with ICE operating the exchange and clearing infrastructure. Third-party research attributes roughly 26.7% of $64.7 billion in 30-day Hyperliquid trading volume to HIP-3 markets. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump said his administration was working to bring Hyperliquid into the US “in a fully compliant and legal fashion.”

For PURR holders, the next hard fact is the CFTC’s review, whose timeline the company itself says it cannot promise. HIP-3 has been live on Hyperliquid mainnet since October 13, 2025, and launching markets under it requires staking over 500,000 HYPE tokens.