Crypto Giant Bybit Storms TradFi with Stock Trading and Tokenised Equities Launch

Bybit, the Dubai-headquartered exchange, is significantly expanding its reach beyond traditional cryptocurrency markets by introducing a suite of new financial products and services. Announced by CEO Ben Zhou at the company’s biannual “Keynote with Ben” session on October 14, these initiatives include the launch of US stock and exchange-traded fund (ETF) trading, alongside the development of an innovative tokenized equity product named mStocks, in collaboration with Mantle.

The US stock trading product, which became live on October 12, empowers eligible users to engage in buying and selling US equities utilizing USDC. This service offers fractional share support and extended 24-hour, five-day access, encompassing pre-market, regular, and after-hours trading sessions. Seamlessly integrated into Bybit’s existing Unified Trading Account, this new offering complements the platform’s current support for crypto derivatives and foreign exchange, providing a comprehensive trading environment.

A more structurally novel advancement is mStocks, which Bybit aims to launch in November. This product is conceptualized as a tokenized stock, meticulously backed one-to-one by real underlying securities. The design includes planned support for round-the-clock conversion capabilities between eligible traditional stocks and their mStocks counterparts. Once converted, these tokenized assets will serve multiple functions, including being usable as collateral within the Unified Trading Account and being tradeable through automated market maker (AMM) liquidity pools operating on the Mantle network.

Further enhancing its market offerings, Bybit also introduced IPO Express in June. This service grants eligible users access to selected initial public offering (IPO) opportunities at the offering price, facilitated through tokenized representations. The company announced that SpaceX was the inaugural offering, marking Bybit's expansion from secondary to selected primary markets.

Bybit's foray into traditional finance (TradFi) perpetuals has already demonstrated substantial success, recording over $180 billion in cumulative trading volume since its entry into CFD markets in 2022. Its diverse catalogue now comprises more than 600 instruments across various asset classes, including equities, indices, commodities, and foreign exchange. Innovatively, Bybit has also launched Forex Perps and Perp Options, a derivatives structure it describes as an industry-first, built directly on top of TradFi perpetuals rather than spot prices, signifying a strategic evolution in derivative offerings.

The regulatory landscape for such hybrid models is inherently complex. Tokenized securities typically fall under securities law in most jurisdictions, necessitating cross-border platforms to navigate fragmented licensing requirements. Bybit stated it secured five new licenses and regulatory approvals during 2026 across the European Union, the Cayman Islands, Indonesia, South Africa, and El Salvador. However, the specific license categories and the product lines they cover remain ambiguous. This lack of specificity is critical, as the classification of mStocks—whether as a security, a derivative, or a stablecoin-adjacent instrument—will dictate its permissible offering jurisdictions and the applicable disclosure regimes.

In the competitive arena, several players are pursuing analogous strategies. Robinhood is extending its crypto and equities offerings across European markets, while Coinbase has indicated interest in expanding into derivatives and equities products for international users. Concurrently, traditional prime brokers and retail platforms like Interactive Brokers have integrated crypto custody and trading alongside conventional equities, thereby compressing the differentiation Bybit seeks. Bybit’s distinct advantage lies in the collateral interoperability between crypto and stock positions within a unified account structure. While this feature holds significant appeal for active traders, it also raises intricate margin and risk management questions that regulators will undoubtedly scrutinize closely.

Beyond trading, Bybit is also focusing on security and technological advancements. In the first half of 2026, the company reported intercepting over 30,000 suspicious withdrawal requests, protecting more than $700 million in assets. Furthermore, Bybit launched Bybit AI in September, a conversational assistant designed to support users across trading, account management, and customer support functionalities.

CEO Ben Zhou articulates the company's broader vision, stating, "We have brought trading, investing, payments and AI together, and we are continuing to add more markets and more ways to use them." This holistic approach is further supported by Bybit’s payments infrastructure. Its Bybit Card and Bybit Pay services now cater to over 5,000 merchants across more than 15 countries, with more than four million cards issued. This payment ecosystem appears designed to extend platform stickiness beyond active trading sessions, although the commercial model for the card program and the unit economics of the merchant network have not been disclosed.

Key markers for future observation include the specific jurisdictions where mStocks will launch, the definitive regulatory classification Bybit obtains for the product, and whether the IPO Express pre-market offering will expand beyond its initial single-issuer format.