Phantom hires Ventuals trio as perps strategy comes into focus

Phantom has hired three Ventuals creators after the Hyperliquid-based project shut down its OpenAI and Anthropic perpetual futures markets.

Phantom CEO Brandon Millman said Alvin Hsia, Emily Hsia and Aris Samad, who created Ventuals, have joined the company’s trading and data teams.

The move brings one of Hyperliquid’s closely watched private-company market experiments into Phantom’s growing trading business.

Ventuals had earlier announced that it was winding down and joining another project within the Hyperliquid ecosystem. The project had gained attention for offering perpetual futures tied to private-company valuations, including markets linked to OpenAI and Anthropic, before those products were closed.

Perpetual futures allow traders to take positions on price movements without a contract expiry date. Unlike traditional futures, these contracts can remain open as long as margin conditions are met, making them one of the most used derivative products in crypto markets. 

Their constant availability, deep liquidity, and flexible market design have also made them useful for trading assets beyond listed cryptocurrencies.

Phantom deepens focus on Hyperliquid trading

For Phantom, the hires come as the self-custody wallet continues adding trading-focused features to its core wallet business. The company is best known as a crypto wallet provider, but it has expanded into swaps, staking and derivatives as wallets compete to become more active financial platforms for users.

Millman said Phantom has become the largest distribution partner in the Hyperliquid ecosystem and plans to keep building around perpetual futures. He said open markets had become a major focus for the company and added that Phantom had gone deep into perps and planned to go further.

In the same statement, Millman described Hyperliquid as one of the strongest examples of what open markets can enable, citing its global liquidity and transparent onchain infrastructure. According to him, adding the Ventuals team will help Phantom move faster in developing trading products linked to the ecosystem.

The development also comes as perpetual futures gain attention outside crypto-native exchanges. Kalshi launched its own perpetual futures business last month after receiving regulatory approval, adding another example of trading platforms testing always-on derivatives beyond traditional crypto markets.