Phantom hires Ventuals team for Hyperliquid perps push
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- Phantom hired Alvin Hsia, Emily Hsia, and Aris Samad, the creators of Ventuals, for its trading and data teams, CEO Brandon Millman announced Tuesday.
- Ventuals shut down its OpenAI and Anthropic perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid this week, ending "one of the exchange's most prominent experiments in trading private-company valuations onchain," according to Phantom.
- Phantom CEO Brandon Millman said the wallet plans to "go deeper" on perpetuals and open markets, calling Hyperliquid "one of the best examples anywhere of what open markets make possible" due to its global liquidity and transparent onchain infrastructure.
- Phantom describes itself as the largest distribution partner in the Hyperliquid ecosystem, part of a broader shift in which crypto wallets are expanding from token storage into swaps, staking, and derivatives.
- Kalshi launched its own perpetual futures business last month after regulatory approval, joining a wave of exchanges betting that always-on derivatives — contracts with no expiration date — will expand beyond crypto into private-company bets and commodities.
Why it matters: Phantom snaps up the builders behind one of Hyperliquid's most-watched private-company perps experiments, accelerating its shift from wallet to trading platform. With Kalshi launching perps last month and Ventuals winding down its OpenAI and Anthropic markets, the talent and product race around always-on derivatives is intensifying well beyond crypto-native venues.
