Dubai, United Arab Emirates, October 13, 2026 (Chainwire) — Bybit Co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou has laid out the latest stage of the company's transformation from a cryptocurrency exchange into what it calls The New Financial Platform, detailing new products and collaborations across trading, investing, payments and artificial intelligence.

The updates were presented during Bybit's latest biannual "Keynote with Ben" session, titled "Make Your Move." Held outside the usual studio format before a live audience, the keynote brought Zhou together with selected guests to discuss the convergence of financial markets, new technologies, and the products shaping Bybit's next phase.

Four Years of TradFi Expansion, With Stocks Live and mStocks Ahead

Four years after entering traditional finance through contracts for difference (CFDs) in 2022, Bybit has established itself as the largest crypto CFD platform, with trading volume reaching as much as $100 billion at its peak. CFDs are derivative instruments that allow traders to speculate on the price movements of an asset without owning it. On Oct. 12, the company moved further into traditional markets with the launch of stock trading for eligible users, providing access to more than 1,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs. Users can trade using USDC, with fractional shares and 24/5 access covering U.S. pre-market, regular and after-hours sessions. Fractional shares let users build positions in high-priced equities without buying a whole share, while the 24/5 window stretches access beyond the standard U.S. trading day — features that lower the practical barriers between crypto balances and U.S. equity markets.

Bybit is also developing mStocks in collaboration with Mantle, with a targeted launch in November. Tokenized equities are an emerging product category that aims to bring traditional stocks onto blockchain rails, where trading does not depend on exchange opening hours. The tokenized stock product is designed to be backed 1:1 by real stocks, with plans to support round-the-clock conversion between eligible stocks and mStocks on Bybit, as well as decentralized exchange trading through automated market maker (AMM) liquidity pools on Mantle. Converted mStocks are also expected to be transferable into Bybit's Unified Trading Account (UTA) for use as trading collateral, subject to applicable terms and conditions.

The stock launch follows a series of product rollouts introduced by the company this year. In June, Bybit launched IPO Express, giving eligible users access to selected IPO opportunities at the offering price through tokenized representations of the underlying securities. The service debuted with SpaceX and is designed to extend Bybit's reach beyond secondary-market trading into selected primary-market opportunities.

The latest developments build on Bybit's earlier expansion into perpetuals, pre-market products, foreign exchange and options. Its TradFi offering now spans more than 600 products across equities, ETFs, indices, commodities and FX. TradFi perpetuals have recorded more than $180 billion in trading volume, while recent additions include Forex Perps and Perp Options, an industry-first options product built on TradFi perpetuals. Bybit continues to develop new perpetual products linked to AI computing and commodities, extending its range of instruments beyond conventional crypto markets.

Extending the Platform Into Payments

Beyond trading and investing, Bybit has expanded its payments infrastructure to help customers move funds with greater flexibility. Bybit Pay and Bybit Card support crypto and fiat transfers, merchant payments and everyday spending. The service now connects users with more than 5,000 merchants across more than 15 countries and supports transfers to bank accounts and e-wallets, alongside QR payments and other payment services. Bybit has issued more than 4 million Bybit Cards, extending the platform's use beyond financial markets into payments and spending. Payments have become a common extension for trading platforms, turning exchange balances into tools for daily spending and linking market activity to everyday commerce.

Security and Regulatory Infrastructure

The expansion has been accompanied by sustained investment in security, compliance and technology infrastructure. In the first half of 2026, Bybit said it intercepted more than 30,000 suspicious withdrawal requests, protecting users from more than $700 million in potential losses.

Bybit also secured five new licenses and regulatory approvals during 2026, spanning the European Union, the Cayman Islands, Indonesia, South Africa and El Salvador. Approvals of this kind determine where a platform can lawfully offer its products, making licensing a practical precondition for the multi-market expansion the keynote describes. These regulatory developments support the company's efforts to expand its presence across different markets, subject to local requirements.

In September, the company launched Bybit AI, a conversational assistant spanning trading, account management and customer support, with further development planned around the platform's wider financial services.

"Bybit is all about giving you speed and scale you need when you Make Your Move. We have brought trading, investing, payments and AI together, and we are continuing to add more markets and more ways to use them. We built the platform. Now it is about giving people the financial freedom to make their own move," said Ben Zhou, Co-founder and CEO of Bybit.

Building Beyond the Exchange

Four years after entering TradFi, Bybit now combines crypto markets with stocks and ETFs, derivatives, commodities, FX, selected pre-IPO access, payments and AI-powered services. The company's focus is increasingly on bringing these capabilities together within a single platform while continuing to expand market access, product depth and the infrastructure supporting them.

Bybit, which says it is trusted by more than 80 million users worldwide, describes the development of The New Financial Platform as the next stage of its growth beyond crypto and into a broader role across global financial markets. The clearest near-term markers of that next phase are already on the calendar: mStocks' targeted November launch and the continued buildout of perpetual products tied to AI computing and commodities.

The full keynote session can be watched at: