Jeffrey Sprecher, the founder and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), called the decentralized perpetual futures venue Hyperliquid “bigger than NASDAQ” at a Bernstein conference this week and disclosed his team has met its founders multiple times, a sign that U.S. exchange incumbents are no longer treating crypto-native trading platforms as fringe.

“This Hyperliquid that we’re talking, if you haven’t heard about it, it’s bigger than NASDAQ, okay? It’s 11 people. You look at it, you’re like, wow, that’s pretty something,” Sprecher said in a May 27 fireside chat with Bernstein analyst Chinedu Bolu, calling the team “very, very smart people.”

Hyperliquid’s HYPE token carries a market capitalization of roughly $15.1 billion against Nasdaq…