S&P 500 Makes Its Onchain Debut With Licensed Perpetual Launch

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 📊 S&P 500 gets its first officially licensed onchain perpetual on Hyperliquid

• 🤖 Tempo mainnet launches with AI agent payments backed by Stripe and Paradigm

• 📉 Kraken pauses IPO plans as crypto listing market momentum fades

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S&P 500 Gets First Officially Licensed Onchain Perpetual, Landing on Hyperliquid

S&P Dow Jones Indices has officially licensed the S&P 500 to a decentralized exchange for the first time. The benchmark will trade as a perpetual contract on Hyperliquid via Trade[XYZ], available around the clock every day of the year, marking the first officially licensed perpetual derivative based on a major equity index on any decentralized platform.

The "officially licensed" distinction is the story. Earlier attempts to bring the S&P 500 on-chain relied on synthetic pricing not backed by S&P DJI's data. This contract runs on institutional-quality index data from the source, which S&P DJI Chief Product Officer Cameron Drinkwater says is essential for "deep liquidity and institutional confidence at scale." Access is currently limited to eligible non-U.S. investors.

The launch arrives as Hyperliquid has become a serious real-world asset trading venue. Trade[XYZ] markets on the platform have crossed $100 billion in total volume since October 2025, at an annualized rate above $600 billion. Earlier this month, an oil contract briefly generated more daily volume on Hyperliquid than Ethereum, a notable first.

The deal signals something beyond product innovation: one of finance's most respected institutions has decided decentralized infrastructure is ready for flagship benchmarks.

We discussed all about this yesterday on Uneasy Money, go catch the replay now!

Stripe and Paradigm's Tempo Blockchain Goes Live With AI Agent Payments Protocol

Stripe's payments blockchain went live today, and its most consequential feature has nothing to do with humans. Tempo, the stablecoin-focused chain built by Stripe and Paradigm, launched its mainnet alongside the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard that lets AI agents pay for services autonomously, without human sign-off at each step.

The protocol introduces a new primitive called "sessions," essentially OAuth for money. An agent authorizes a spending cap once, then streams micropayments continuously as it consumes services like data, compute, or API calls. Stripe, Visa, and Lightspark have already extended the standard to support cards, wallets, and Bitcoin Lightning respectively.

The partner list is what gives this weight. Anthropic, OpenAI, DoorDash, Mastercard, Shopify, Nubank, Revolut, and Standard Chartered are all building on Tempo for live payment workloads, including cross-border remittances, global payouts, and embedded finance.

The timing underscores how fast this space is moving. Mastercard this week agreed to buy stablecoin infrastructure startup BVNK for $1.8 billion. Stripe had already acquired stablecoin startup Bridge and crypto wallet firm Privy. Payments infrastructure is quietly becoming the most competitive arena in crypto.

Kraken Freezes IPO Plans as 2026 Crypto Listing Market Loses Steam

The 2026 crypto IPO market is proving harder than 2025 suggested it would be. Kraken has paused its plans to go public, citing difficult market conditions, according to CoinDesk reporting, with sources saying the exchange may revisit a listing when conditions improve.

Kraken filed confidentially with the SEC in November, the same week it raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation, including $200 million from Citadel Securities. Bitcoin has since pulled back from its October record high, weighing on trading volumes and making investors more cautious about new listings.

Last year, 11 crypto companies went public and raised a combined $14.6 billion, up from $310 million in 2024. The 2026 class is off to a rougher start: BitGo, the only digital asset firm to list so far this year, has seen its stock fall 44%. CoinDesk also reported that Kraken dismissed its CFO, Stephanie Lemmerman, earlier this year.

Not everyone is pulling back. Securitize, the tokenization firm that works closely with BlackRock, says it still plans to go public as early as the second quarter. But the gap between 2025's IPO frenzy and 2026's caution is growing.

• 📜 The U.S. Senate Banking Committee is preparing an April vote on a major crypto market structure bill, which seeks to clearly divide oversight between regulators and define how digital assets are classified, though debates over stablecoin yields and industry rules remain unresolved.

• 💸 FTX’s bankruptcy estate is set to distribute $2.2 billion to creditors on March 31, marking its fourth payout and pushing many users toward full recovery after the exchange’s 2022 collapse, with funds routed through platforms like Kraken and BitGo.

• 🇦🇷 Argentine forensic investigators uncovered evidence that President Javier Milei received regular payments from a crypto-linked lobbyist since 2021, with amounts increasing after he took office, deepening scrutiny over his alleged ties to the failed Libra memecoin scandal.

• 🏗️ The Algorand Foundation, a nonprofit supporting the Algorand blockchain, cut 25% of its workforce, citing global economic uncertainty and a slowdown in crypto markets as the sector faces broader layoffs.

• 💹 Flow Traders, a major European market-making firm, expanded into tokenized assets by offering 24/7 trading through its OTC desk, enabling institutions to buy and hedge blockchain-based versions of funds, commodities, and equities outside normal market hours.

• 📈 The SEC approved Nasdaq’s plan to enable trading of tokenized stocks—digital versions of shares on blockchain networks that carry the same rights as traditional equities, allowing them to trade alongside regular stocks while modernizing settlement systems.

• 💰 Prediction market platform Polymarket acquired Brahma, a crypto payments startup founded in 2021, aiming to improve user experience and inject more liquidity into smaller, niche bets by leveraging Brahma’s DeFi expertise and $1 billion+ transaction history.

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