Hyperbolic, a 50-person financial technology startup led by Jasper Zhang, is developing a spot marketplace for tradable GPU computing power. The platform aims to provide investors with a direct method to hedge against potential declines in AI demand by allowing them to buy and sell the underlying hardware clusters rather than relying solely on financial derivatives.
Zhang, a former quantitative researcher at Citadel Securities who holds a doctorate in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, launched Hyperbolic in 2022. The company has raised $20 million to date and is currently conducting another funding round. It reports approximately 250,000 users and an estimated $200 million in annual GPU compute connected to its platform. Hyperbolic projects an annualized run rate of $150 million by the end of the year. The startup’s head of finance, Hong Chan Kim, previously worked at Point72, Balyasny Asset Management, and Citadel LLC.
The technical foundation of the platform is Forge software, which virtually logs into GPU clusters worldwide. The software makes technical adjustments to ensure that mismatched clusters operate efficiently together. This process standardizes the units of compute for trading while retaining the ability for traders to control the underlying GPUs for their own purposes. Zhang describes this capability as equivalent to being present in the data center. He positions the technology as the initial component for physically settled GPU futures, which would grant contract owners complete control over a cluster with specific, known characteristics upon settlement.
The development addresses a structural issue in GPU financing where architecture variations, networking, memory, and security configurations result in disparate performance levels across data centers. Financing agreements often prohibit builders from sharing pricing data, which can cause survey-based indices to average setup costs while missing outlier expenses. In futures markets, this discrepancy is referred to as basis risk. Hyperbolic seeks to mitigate this by facilitating direct trading of the hardware itself.
Major market participants are pursuing similar hedging solutions through different mechanisms. CME Group is planning a cash-settled futures product tied to GPU pricing maintained by Silicon Data, an index provider backed by DRW. Don Wilson, founder and CEO of DRW, stated that cash futures serve as a foundational building block for the ecosystem. The CME product is under review by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which recently extended the review period to November 9. This extension may also impact a separate futures contract proposed by Intercontinental Exchange and data provider Ornn, which is backed by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z crypto fund.
Critics of cash-settled products argue they are imperfect hedges for real-world operational risks. Kim noted that cash-settled futures may not reflect physical reality, whereas physical usage maintains a direct connection between the asset and its derivative value. Carmen Li, CEO of Silicon Data and DRW-backed Compute Exchange, emphasized that while indices provide financial hedging, they do not assist with procurement needs. She noted that indices represent normalized global numbers that fail to address the logistical requirements of acquiring hardware.
Zhang argues that smaller startups lacking significant capital or credit lines require a virtual pipeline to physical hardware more than financial instruments. He pointed out that providers need additional methods to monetize available GPU capacity during market slowdowns, particularly when long-term contracts offer thin margins. While cash-settled futures can help manage falling prices, Zhang contended that they do not themselves put idle GPUs to work.