HelloTrade
A blockchain-powered mobile trading platform for leveraged perpetual futures on global assets.
Website: https://www.hello.trade
PUBLIC
| Name | HelloTrade |
| Tagline | A blockchain-powered mobile trading platform for leveraged perpetual futures on global assets. |
| Headquarters | New York City, United States |
| Founded | 2025 |
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | B2C |
| Industry | Fintech |
| Technology | Blockchain / Web3 |
| Geography | Global / Remote-First |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding Label | Seed (total disclosed ~$4,600,000) |
Links
PUBLIC
- Website: https://www.hello.trade
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hellotrade
Executive Summary
PUBLIC
HelloTrade is a pre-launch mobile trading platform that aims to provide global retail investors with 24/7 access to leveraged perpetual futures on U.S. stocks, commodities, and crypto, a proposition that merits investor attention for its attempt to bridge a significant access gap with a team that has already secured institutional backing [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. The company was founded in 2025 by Wyatt Raich and Kevin Tang, both of whom previously worked in BlackRock's digital assets unit, a background that informed their focus on serving investors outside the U.S. who find direct access to American markets difficult [Fortune, Nov 2025]. Its core product is a mobile app built on the MegaETH blockchain, which abstracts the typical crypto user experience by eliminating wallet setup and gas fees, promising the speed of a traditional brokerage with the settlement rails of a high-throughput layer-2 network [hello.trade].
The founding team's pedigree from a major asset manager appears to have accelerated early fundraising, with the company closing a $4.6 million seed round led by Dragonfly Capital in under a week during November 2025 [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. The business model is B2C, targeting retail users for a trading platform that has not yet launched but is expected to go live by the end of 2025 or early 2026 [Fortune, Nov 2025]. Over the next 12-18 months, the critical watchpoints will be the platform's actual launch and initial user adoption, the performance and security of its underlying MegaETH infrastructure, and its ability to execute on the promise of a simplified, mobile-first trading experience for a global audience.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Core claims corroborated by multiple independent sources including Fortune and Digital Journal.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Classification |
|---|---|
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | B2C |
| Industry / Vertical | Fintech |
| Technology Type | Blockchain / Web3 |
| Geography | Global / Remote-First |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding | Seed (total disclosed ~$4,600,000) |
Company Overview
PUBLIC
HelloTrade was founded in 2025 by Wyatt Raich and Kevin Tang, two executives who left BlackRock's digital assets unit to build a mobile trading platform [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. The company is headquartered in New York City and operates a remote-first structure [Crunchbase]. Its founding premise, as articulated by co-founder Kevin Tang, stemmed from the observation that it was "too difficult for people overseas to participate in common investment opportunities like purchasing U.S. stocks" [Fortune, Nov 2025]. The company's primary legal entity and incorporation details are not publicly available.
The startup's key milestone to date is its seed financing. In November 2025, HelloTrade announced the close of a $4.6 million seed round led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Mirana Ventures [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. The company's public materials state the round "came together in under a week," a timeline framed as a signal of investor conviction in the team and market [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. The company is currently in a pre-launch phase, building a team of approximately 10 employees and preparing for a product launch targeted for the end of 2025 or early 2026 [Fortune, Nov 2025].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by company website, Digital Journal, and Fortune.
Product and Technology
MIXED
HelloTrade is building a mobile-first trading platform that uses a blockchain settlement layer to offer leveraged perpetual futures contracts on a range of assets, from U.S. stocks to commodities and crypto. The core proposition is to provide global retail investors, particularly those outside the U.S., with 24/7 access to these markets through a simplified interface that hides the underlying crypto mechanics [hello.trade]. Co-founder Kevin Tang told Fortune the motivation came from seeing how difficult it was for people in countries like Vietnam and Indonesia to access common U.S. investment opportunities [Fortune, Nov 2025]. The product is not yet live, with a launch targeted for the end of 2025 or early 2026 [Fortune, Nov 2025].
The platform's technical architecture is built on MegaETH, a high-throughput blockchain layer that the company claims can process over one hundred thousand transactions per second [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. This choice is central to the performance and security narrative, aiming to deliver exchange-like speed while maintaining crypto-native settlement. A key part of the user experience design is abstraction: the company states there will be no wallet setup, gas payments, or technical jargon required, positioning the app to feel like a traditional brokerage [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. The specific assets available and the exact mechanics of the perpetual futures contracts, including funding rates and liquidation protocols, are not detailed in public materials.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Product claims and launch timeline are consistently reported across multiple independent sources, including the company website and major financial publications.
Market Research
PUBLIC The addressable market for HelloTrade is defined by a structural gap in global retail financial access, where demand for U.S. assets meets the technical and regulatory friction of traditional brokerage.
Third-party sizing for the specific market of leveraged perpetual futures on U.S. equities for a non-U.S. retail audience is not available. Analysts can, however, triangulate using adjacent, publicly reported markets. The global retail online brokerage and trading platform market was valued at over $10 billion in 2024, with Asia-Pacific representing the fastest-growing region [Allied Market Research, 2024]. More directly, the global crypto derivatives market, which includes perpetual futures, saw daily trading volume regularly exceed $100 billion throughout 2024 [CCData, 2024]. The demand driver for HelloTrade's wedge is not a lack of trading venues, but a lack of integrated, user-friendly access to leveraged exposure on traditional assets for users outside the U.S. financial system.
Key demand tailwinds cited in industry coverage include the persistent appetite for U.S. equity exposure in emerging markets and the growing retail familiarity with perpetual futures contracts through crypto-native platforms. The migration of these trading mechanics to traditional asset classes represents a logical, though nascent, convergence. Adjacent and substitute markets are significant: traditional international brokerages offering direct stock ownership, offshore CFD (Contract for Difference) providers, and established crypto exchanges that have begun listing tokenized equity derivatives. HelloTrade's proposed differentiation rests on bundling the 24/7 use of the latter with a simplified mobile experience, aiming to capture users for whom direct brokerage access is cumbersome or unavailable.
Regulatory and macro forces present a complex backdrop. The platform's focus on serving non-U.S. retail investors is a deliberate positioning to navigate the stringent regulatory environment for leveraged derivatives in the United States. However, its reliance on blockchain settlement and its promotion to a global user base will subject it to a patchwork of international financial regulations, from marketing restrictions to derivatives licensing. A significant macro force is the ongoing institutional adoption of digital asset infrastructure, a trend the founders witnessed firsthand, which lends credibility to the underlying technology stack but does not guarantee retail adoption.
| Market Segment | Cited Size / Volume | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Global Retail Online Brokerage | >$10B (2024) | [Allied Market Research, 2024] |
| Global Crypto Derivatives (Daily Volume) | >$100B (2024) | [CCData, 2024] |
These analogous markets illustrate the substantial pools of capital and user activity adjacent to HelloTrade's target. The company's success hinges on carving out a niche at the intersection of these two large but distinct sectors, rather than capturing a share of either independently.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Market sizing is based on analogous, third-party industry reports; specific TAM for the product's exact offering is not publicly defined.
Competitive Landscape
MIXED
HelloTrade is positioning itself at the intersection of traditional brokerage and crypto exchange models, targeting a specific gap in access for non-U.S. retail investors. The competitive map is defined by three distinct segments: incumbent retail brokerages, established crypto derivatives exchanges, and a newer cohort of hybrid platforms offering tokenized equity access.
- Incumbent retail brokerages. Firms like Interactive Brokers and Charles Schwab offer global access to U.S. equities, but operate within traditional market hours and settlement systems. They do not offer leveraged perpetual futures contracts on those assets, which is HelloTrade's core product mechanic.
- Established crypto derivatives exchanges. Platforms such as Binance, Bybit, and OKX dominate the market for crypto perpetual futures, offering high use and 24/7 trading. Their weakness, from HelloTrade's perspective, is a limited selection of traditional asset derivatives and a user experience that remains crypto-native, often requiring wallet management and on-chain gas fees.
- Hybrid tokenized equity platforms. This emerging segment includes companies like Bitget and Kraken, which have recently added equity access via tokenized products or contracts-for-difference (CFDs) [TradingView News]. Their approach often involves synthetic assets or tokenized representations, which can introduce counterparty or regulatory complexity distinct from HelloTrade's blockchain-settled perpetual futures model.
HelloTrade's stated edge rests on two integrated choices: its user experience abstraction and its underlying infrastructure. The platform's commitment to removing wallet setup, gas payments, and technical jargon aims directly at the UX friction that characterizes most crypto exchanges [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. This is a perishable advantage, however, as any competitor with sufficient engineering resources could replicate a simplified front-end. A more durable, though unproven, edge may lie in its exclusive build on the MegaETH blockchain, which is claimed to enable over 100,000 transactions per second [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. If MegaETH delivers superior speed and lower costs at scale, it could create a performance moat for HelloTrade's settlement layer that is harder for incumbents to match quickly.
The company's most significant exposure is to regulatory scrutiny and the execution risk of its chosen tech stack. While it aims to serve users outside the U.S., the offering of leveraged derivatives on U.S. equities will attract attention from regulators globally. A named competitor like Interactive Brokers possesses a decades-long advantage in navigating international financial regulations, a domain where HelloTrade is untested. Furthermore, the entire product depends on the successful performance and adoption of MegaETH, a relatively new Layer 2. If MegaETH encounters technical issues, security vulnerabilities, or fails to achieve developer traction, HelloTrade's promised "institutional-grade" performance and speed become a liability rather than a differentiator.
The most plausible 18-month scenario hinges on execution and regulatory clarity. If HelloTrade launches smoothly, achieves liquidity in its key perpetual futures markets, and avoids major regulatory blocks, it could capture meaningful share from international users of platforms like Bybit who seek traditional asset exposure. The "winner" in this case would be HelloTrade, at the expense of crypto-native exchanges that are slower to simplify UX and expand their traditional asset offerings. Conversely, if regulatory hurdles delay product rollouts in key markets or if MegaETH stumbles, the "loser" could be HelloTrade itself. This would create an opening for a well-capitalized hybrid player like Kraken to accelerate its own tokenized equity roadmap with a more established infrastructure backend, consolidating the market opportunity.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitive positioning is inferred from product claims and market segments; specific competitor funding and differentiator details are based on public reporting.
Opportunity
PUBLIC
If HelloTrade successfully onboards the global retail investors it targets, the company could become the primary gateway for leveraged exposure to U.S. assets outside the United States, a market measured in billions of daily trading volume.
The headline opportunity is to become the default mobile platform for non-U.S. retail traders seeking leveraged, 24/7 access to traditional financial markets. This outcome is reachable because the founders have identified a specific, documented pain point: Kevin Tang told Fortune that the team "came to feel it was too difficult for people overseas to participate in common investment opportunities like purchasing U.S. stocks," citing examples in Vietnam and Indonesia [Fortune, Nov 2025]. The product's design directly addresses this by abstracting the complex crypto infrastructure required for such a service, promising a user experience akin to a traditional brokerage [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. The rapid seed funding from Dragonfly Capital, which reportedly closed in under a week, signals investor conviction that this team can execute on this specific wedge [Digital Journal, Nov 2025].
The path to scale could follow several concrete scenarios, each hinging on a distinct catalyst.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dominant Emerging Market Entry | HelloTrade becomes the go-to app for retail traders in 2-3 high-growth regions (e.g., Southeast Asia, Latin America) seeking leveraged U.S. equity exposure. | Strategic marketing partnerships with local fintech influencers or payment processors in target countries. | The founding narrative is explicitly built on serving investors in Vietnam and Indonesia, demonstrating early market focus [Fortune, Nov 2025]. The mobile-first, simplified UX is tailored for regions where smartphone penetration outpaces traditional brokerage access. |
| Crypto-Native Trader Expansion | The platform captures significant market share from crypto derivatives traders looking to diversify into traditional asset perpetuals without leaving a crypto-native environment. | Successful integration and liquidity provisioning for key crypto assets alongside stock/commodity futures at launch. | The technical stack is built on MegaETH, a high-throughput blockchain appealing to performance-sensitive crypto traders [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. The advisor roster includes figures like Arthur Hayes (Maelstrom) and Larry Florio (Ethena), who carry deep credibility within the crypto derivatives community [Digital Journal, Nov 2025]. |
Compounding for HelloTrade would manifest as a classic liquidity flywheel, but with a user-experience twist. Initial traction in a core market attracts more users, which improves liquidity and tightens spreads. A better trading environment, combined with the abstracted UX that hides blockchain complexity, lowers the barrier for the next wave of less technically adept users. This cycle reinforces platform loyalty. While the flywheel is not yet in motion pre-launch, the design choice to eliminate wallet setup and gas fees is a deliberate attempt to trigger this growth loop from day one [Digital Journal, Nov 2025].
The size of the win, should the Dominant Emerging Market Entry scenario play out, can be framed by looking at comparable platforms. For instance, Bitget, a centralized exchange with a strong focus on derivatives and emerging markets, reportedly facilitated a peak daily trading volume of over $10 billion in 2024 [CoinGecko, 2024]. While HelloTrade is targeting a different asset mix, capturing even a single-digit percentage of similar retail derivatives volume focused on traditional assets would represent a multi-billion dollar annualized revenue opportunity (scenario, not a forecast). The advisor involvement from Josh Lim of FalconX, a major crypto prime broker, lends credence to the scale of institutional liquidity and trading activity in this adjacent market [Digital Journal, Nov 2025].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Scenarios and catalysts are extrapolated from directly cited founder statements, product claims, and investor/advisor backgrounds.
Sources
PUBLIC
[Digital Journal, Nov 2025] Hellotrade founded by former BlackRock crypto directors raises $4.6M seed round led by Dragonfly Capital | https://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/news/binary-news-network/hellotrade-founded-former-blackrock-crypto-1902698412.html
[Fortune, Nov 2025] Former BlackRock employees raise $4.6 million for crypto trading platform | https://fortune.com/2025/11/20/former-blackrock-employees-raise-4-6-million/
[hello.trade] HelloTrade Website | https://www.hello.trade
[Crunchbase] Hello Trade - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/hello-trade
[Allied Market Research, 2024] Global Retail Online Brokerage Market Report | https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/online-brokerage-market-A31392
[CCData, 2024] Crypto Derivatives Market Report | https://www.ccdata.io/
[TradingView News] As Bitget and Kraken Add Equity Access, HelloTrade to Offer Leveraged Trading to Retail Investors | https://www.tradingview.com/news/financemagnates:2de2f9c91094b:0-as-bitget-and-kraken-add-equity-access-hellotrade-to-offer-leveraged-trading-to-retail-investors/
[CoinGecko, 2024] Bitget Exchange Data | https://www.coingecko.com/en/exchanges/bitget
Articles about HelloTrade
- HelloTrade's $4.6 Million Seed Funds a Mobile Perpetuals Bet for Global Retail — Former BlackRock digital assets directors Wyatt Raich and Kevin Tang are building a wallet-free trading app on MegaETH, targeting investors in Vietnam and Indonesia.