Hyperliquid Policy Center and Douro Labs urge SEC to repeal trade-through rule for onchain markets

Two organizations deeply embedded in the Hyperliquid ecosystem have told the SEC to ditch a 20-year-old equity trading rule and start thinking about what “best execution” actually means when trades settle on a blockchain instead of the NYSE.

The Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) and Douro Labs submitted a joint comment letter on August 17 backing the SEC’s June 11 proposal to rescind Rule 611 of Regulation NMS. The rule, originally adopted in 2005, requires trading venues to route orders to whichever exchange displays the best price, a concept known as the “trade-through” rule. Both organizations argue the rule is a relic of an era when stock exchanges were the only game in town.

What Rule 611 does and why crypto wants it gone

Rule 611 was designed to protect investors by ensuring their orders got the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO) price across all registered exchanges. In practice, it means a broker can’t execute your trade at a worse price if a better one exists somewhere else in the system. Onchain markets don’t operate like centralized exchanges. There’s no consolidated quote system, no closing bell, and no neat hierarchy of registered venues. Trading happens 24/7 across permissionless protocols where liquidity can appear and vanish within a single block.

The SEC itself acknowledged in its June proposal that the trade-through rule “complicates execution and increases costs.” The proposal would also impact related provisions governing locked and crossed market prohibitions under Regulation NMS.

Best execution, but make it onchain

Repealing Rule 611 is only half of what HPC and Douro Labs are asking for. The other half is principles-based best-execution guidance designed specifically for onchain markets. Onchain trading introduces complications that didn’t exist when those rules were written. Network fees (gas costs) eat into execution quality. Maximal extractable value, or MEV, lets validators and sophisticated actors reorder transactions to profit at a trader’s expense. And because many decentralized venues don’t display conventional quotes, there’s no obvious benchmark to measure “best” against.

Douro Labs, which is closely associated with the Pyth Network oracle, previously submitted comments to the SEC on February 20, proposing that execution certainty, privacy, and total costs should all factor into the assessment of best execution. The joint letter extends that thinking, suggesting that independent, transparent pricing feeds could replace conventional market quotes as the relevant benchmark for onchain venues.

Who’s behind the push

HPC launched on February 18 in Washington, D.C., funded by a $28 million donation in HYPE tokens. Its stated mission is to influence regulatory frameworks for decentralized markets, with a particular focus on onchain perpetual derivatives, the product category where Hyperliquid has built its reputation.

Douro Labs brings a complementary angle. As the team behind the Pyth Network, it has a direct interest in how regulators treat onchain data feeds. If the SEC eventually requires some form of best-execution reporting for decentralized venues, the infrastructure that provides those reference prices becomes critical plumbing, not unlike the role that SIP (Securities Information Processor) feeds play in traditional equities today.