Bybit Review

Overview

Bybit launched in 2018 and has grown into one of the larger centralized crypto exchanges, with a user base that has expanded past 80 million worldwide. The company runs its operations out of Dubai and is led by CEO Ben Zhou. Its core identity is built around derivatives trading, though the platform now covers a broad mix of spot, futures, and options products.

The positioning is straightforward: low fees paired with advanced trading tools aimed at active traders. Spot trading carries a maker fee of 0.1% and a taker fee of 0.1%, while futures sit lower at 0.02% maker and 0.055% taker. Leverage runs up to 100x, which puts Bybit firmly in the camp of exchanges built for traders who want size and speed rather than a simple buy-and-hold interface.

Product depth is one of Bybit’s strongest selling points. The exchange lists 431 spot assets and 623 futures markets, giving traders a wide range of pairs to work with across both casual and professional strategies. New users can also tap into a signup bonus worth up to $30,000. The trade-off is a learning curve. The platform packs in enough tools and order types that newcomers may need time before they feel comfortable, while experienced traders tend to find the depth a plus rather than a barrier.

Regulatory Standing

Bybit operates from Dubai and serves a global user base, but it blocks several jurisdictions outright. The company does not offer services to users in a list of excluded countries and regions, and account creation from those locations is prohibited under its terms of service.

The restricted countries are:

• Canada
• Cuba
• Hong Kong
• Iran
• North Korea
• Singapore
• Sudan
• Syria
• USA
• Uzbekistan

On top of those countries, Bybit excludes specific regions:

• Chinese Mainland
• Crimea
• Donetsk
• Dubai
• Luhansk
• Sevastopol

Two entries stand out. Bybit is headquartered in Dubai, yet Dubai itself appears on the restricted list, so local residents cannot use the main platform. The same applies to the Chinese Mainland, despite Bybit’s roots in the region. The United States and Canada are both off-limits, which rules out a large share of North American traders. Singapore and Hong Kong, two major Asian financial hubs, are also blocked.

The remaining exclusions cover jurisdictions under international sanctions or that present elevated regulatory and legal risk. Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, and Syria fall into that group, along with the Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine.

KYC verification is required to trade on Bybit. Identity checks help the platform enforce its geographic restrictions and meet anti-money-laundering obligations. Users who attempt to access the service from a blocked location risk having their accounts limited or closed.

Restriction lists change. Bybit reserves the right to add or remove jurisdictions at its sole discretion, so the current list is not permanent. Anyone in a borderline region should check Bybit’s official help center before signing up, since the exchange can terminate access in any market at any time.

Bybit’s licensing picture is less clear than the country blocks. The exchange does not publish a single, simple regulatory home base in the way some competitors do, so traders should treat its standing as one factor among several when deciding whether to open an account. The geographic restrictions are the most concrete and enforceable part of its regulatory posture, and they are worth confirming against your own location first.

Bybit vs Bybit EU

Bybit operates two distinct platforms for two different audiences. The global platform at Bybit.com is the full product. It carries the larger menu, including derivatives with up to 100x leverage, 431 spot assets, and 623 futures markets. This is the version most traders mean when they talk about Bybit, and it is run from the company’s base in Dubai.

Bybit EU is the regulated arm built for the European market. It exists to meet European licensing rules, so its feature set is narrower than the global site. Some products available on Bybit.com, particularly high-leverage derivatives, may be limited or unavailable to European users routed through the EU entity. If you sign up from a European country, you may be directed to Bybit EU rather than the global platform. The trade-off is straightforward: the EU version offers a regulated home with local compliance, while Bybit.com offers the wider range of trading tools. Check which entity your account falls under before assuming a specific product or fee tier applies to you.

Pros & Cons

Signup & KYC

Creating a Bybit account starts with an email address or phone number and a password. The signup form is short, and you can usually trade within minutes of confirming your email. New users who register through the bonus link can qualify for rewards worth up to $30,000, subject to deposit and trading conditions.

Identity verification is required on Bybit. KYC is mandatory to deposit, trade, and withdraw, so plan to complete it before funding your account. The process runs in tiers, and each level raises your limits.

KYC levels

• Basic verification: You submit a government issued ID and personal details. This unlocks core trading and standard withdrawal limits.
• Advanced verification: You add proof of address and a liveness or facial check. This raises withdrawal ceilings and opens access to higher limits across products.

The verification check is automated for most users and typically clears quickly once your documents are accepted. Blurry photos or mismatched details are the usual cause of delays, so use a clear image and make sure the name matches your account.

Withdrawal limits

Daily withdrawal limits scale with your verification level. Accounts without completed KYC have very restricted access, basic verification grants a working daily limit, and advanced verification lifts the ceiling substantially. The exact figures depend on your region and account history, so check the limits shown inside your account before planning a large transfer.

Before you sign up, confirm that Bybit serves your location. Residents of Canada, Cuba, Hong Kong, Iran, North Korea, Singapore, Sudan, Syria, the USA, and Uzbekistan cannot open accounts. Service is also restricted in the Chinese Mainland, Crimea, Donetsk, Dubai, Luhansk, and Sevastopol. Attempting to verify from a restricted area will block your account, so use the region your documents reflect.

Once verified, you get access to spot trading across 431 assets and futures across 623 contracts. The same account also covers staking, copy trading, and other products without a separate signup.

Features

Bybit packs a broad toolkit beyond simple buy and sell orders. The platform covers the main trading styles plus passive income products, all inside one account. Here are the standout features.

Spot, Futures, and Options Trading

Bybit runs full markets across three product types. Spot trading covers 431 assets, while the derivatives side lists 623 futures markets with leverage up to 100x. Options trading rounds out the lineup for traders who want to hedge or run more complex strategies.

Copy Trading

Copy trading lets newer users mirror the positions of experienced traders automatically. You pick a lead trader, allocate funds, and their trades replicate in your account. This suits people who want exposure to active strategies without managing every entry and exit themselves.

Trading Bots

Bybit offers built-in trading bots for automated strategies. These run continuously without manual input, covering grid and other rule-based approaches. Bots help traders react to market moves around the clock instead of watching charts all day.

Demo Trading

A demo trading mode gives you a practice environment with simulated funds. This is useful for testing futures strategies or learning the interface before risking real money. New users can get comfortable with leverage and order types at zero cost.

P2P Trading

Peer-to-peer trading connects buyers and sellers directly. Users set their own prices and choose payment methods, which helps in regions where direct fiat rails are limited. Bybit acts as the escrow layer to reduce counterparty risk during the swap.

Earn Products: Staking, Lending, and Loans

Bybit bundles several passive income and borrowing options. Staking lets you earn rewards on supported coins. Lending puts idle assets to work for yield, and loans let you borrow against your holdings without selling them. Together these give holders ways to generate returns or unlock liquidity.

Bybit Card

The debit card lets users spend crypto balances at merchants that accept standard payment cards. It bridges on-platform funds with everyday purchases, converting holdings into spendable money at the point of sale.

Affiliate Program

Bybit operates an affiliate program for users who refer new traders. Affiliates earn a share of referred users’ trading activity, which appeals to content creators and community managers building an audience.

The 2026 Roadmap

Bybit has signaled ambitions beyond a standard exchange. In early 2026 it announced a vision branded “The New Financial Platform,” aiming to expand into broader financial infrastructure that includes a retail banking layer called MyBank. The company positions itself as the world’s second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume, and this roadmap points toward services that reach past trading alone.

The combination of active trading tools, automation, and earn products makes Bybit a one-stop platform. Whether you trade derivatives daily, copy others, or park assets for yield, most of the features sit under a single login. New signups can also claim a bonus worth up to $30,000 when they meet the qualifying conditions.

Fees

Bybit uses a maker-taker fee model that separates spot trading from derivatives. The rates are competitive for active traders and sit near the standard tier most major exchanges charge at the base level.

Spot Trading Fees

On the spot market, Bybit charges a flat rate for both sides of the trade. The maker fee is 0.1% and the taker fee is 0.1%. There is no spread between adding and removing liquidity at the base level, so a market order and a limit order cost the same percentage.

This flat structure keeps things simple. Whether you set a limit order that rests on the book or take an order immediately, you pay the same rate across all 431 spot assets. Higher volume and holding Bybit’s native token can reduce these rates through tier discounts.

Futures Trading Fees

Derivatives are cheaper than spot, which is typical for perpetual and futures contracts. The futures maker fee is 0.02% and the taker fee is 0.055%. The gap between the two rewards traders who provide liquidity with resting limit orders rather than crossing the spread.

These rates apply across Bybit’s 623 futures markets. With leverage up to 100x, the percentage fee is calculated on the full position size, not just your margin, so larger leveraged positions carry proportionally larger fees in absolute terms.

How the Fees Compare

The numbers below summarize the base spot and futures rates for quick reference.

The spot rate of 0.1% is in line with what most centralized exchanges charge at the entry tier. Traders who clear large monthly volume or stake Bybit’s token move into lower brackets, which brings both maker and taker rates down.

Other Cost Factors

Beyond the headline maker and taker rates, perpetual contracts carry funding payments. Funding is a periodic transfer between long and short positions, not a fee paid to the exchange. It can add to or subtract from your cost depending on which side of the trade you hold and market conditions at the time. Anyone holding leveraged futures positions overnight should account for funding alongside the 0.055% taker rate.

Deposit and withdrawal costs are separate from trading fees and depend on the asset and network you use. Crypto network fees vary by blockchain, and any fiat method may carry its own processing charge from the payment provider.

Who Benefits Most

The fee structure favors a few groups:

• Derivatives traders get the lowest rates, with maker orders at 0.02% rewarding patient limit-order strategies.
• High-volume traders qualify for tier discounts that cut both spot and futures rates below the base level.
• Market makers benefit from the gap between the 0.02% maker rate and the 0.055% taker rate on futures.

Casual spot buyers pay the standard 0.1% on each trade, which is reasonable but not the cheapest in the market. Frequent traders who route orders as makers and trade derivatives will see the most savings over time.

One practical tip: on spot markets where the maker and taker rates are identical at 0.1%, there is no fee incentive to favor limit orders over market orders. On futures, the incentive is clear, since maker orders cost less than taker orders. Structuring your futures entries as limit orders is the simplest way to keep trading costs down on Bybit.

Deposit & Withdrawal Methods

Bybit supports both crypto and fiat. Fiat options include bank transfer, SEPA, SWIFT, PIX, cards, plus Apple Pay, Google Pay, and iDEAL through partners like MoonPay.

Security

Bybit carries a trust score of 9 out of 10 in our exchange database. That rating reflects both its operational scale and how it has handled stress, including the largest crypto theft on record. Security at Bybit comes down to three things: how assets are stored, how the platform responded when it was breached, and what protections exist for user funds.

The February 2025 breach

On February 21, 2025, Bybit suffered a security breach losing approximately $1.5 billion in Ethereum, around 401,000 ETH. It is believed to be the largest cryptocurrency theft to date. The attack has been attributed to the North Korea-sponsored Lazarus Group.

The exploit did not come from a weak password or a simple server breach. The hackers obtained the funds while they were moving between a cold wallet, where private keys are kept offline, and a hot wallet connected to the internet. During a routine transfer, attackers exploited a vulnerability in the user interface source code of a free third-party storage software platform that Bybit used in its transaction and multi-signature process. Malicious JavaScript was injected into the signing flow. Bybit had used multisig to avoid a single point of failure, requiring several individuals, including CEO Ben Zhou, to approve each transaction. The attack manipulated what those signers saw, so approvals went through against a compromised transaction.

After the theft, Lazarus laundered the majority of the stolen assets through crypto mixers, services that obscure the origin and destination of transactions and make funds difficult to trace.

Response and recovery

Bybit recovered all users’ funds within 72 hours of the hack. In the immediate aftermath, the company reassured users that it remained solvent and stated it would cover the losses through a combination of internal funds and a bridge loan. No customer lost money as a direct result of the breach.

This is the part that matters most for anyone weighing the incident. A theft of this size could have ended a smaller exchange. Bybit absorbed it, kept withdrawals open, and made users whole on a short timeline. The breach exposed a real weakness in how the platform handled cold-to-warm transfers and its reliance on third-party signing software, but the recovery showed the reserves behind the platform were genuine.

What to take from it

The 2025 event is a reminder that even large, well-funded exchanges are targets, and that cold storage alone does not guarantee safety if the surrounding processes can be manipulated. The exploit happened at the point where assets moved out of cold storage, not while they sat in it. Since then, the focus for any exchange in this position is on hardening the transaction-signing pipeline and reducing dependence on external software in critical paths.

For practical user-side protection, a few habits reduce personal risk regardless of platform-level events:

• Enable two-factor authentication on your account and use an authenticator app rather than SMS where possible.
• Set a withdrawal address allowlist so funds can only be sent to addresses you have pre-approved.
• Use a unique, strong password and avoid reusing credentials from other sites.
• Treat unsolicited messages and links with suspicion, since phishing was a factor in how the 2025 attackers gained access.

The net picture is mixed but not negative. Bybit took the single largest hit any exchange has absorbed and paid users back in full within three days. That outcome supports the high trust rating, even though the breach itself revealed gaps in its transfer process. The episode also pushed broader industry attention toward the security of third-party signing tools and multisig interfaces, which were the weak link rather than the cold storage itself.

Alternatives

If Bybit does not fit your needs, three exchanges cover the same ground from different angles. BloFin is the closest match for derivatives traders, with futures fees that mirror Bybit’s structure and a strong leverage offering. Coinbase suits traders who want a heavily regulated, US-based platform and is one of the few major venues open to American users. Bitvavo is built for European spot traders who prefer a simple, fiat-friendly setup over futures and high leverage.

Conclusion

Bybit holds up as one of the stronger all-around exchanges for active traders. The platform pairs deep derivatives markets with 431 spot assets and 623 futures markets, plus leverage up to 100x. Futures fees sit at 0.02% maker and 0.055% taker, which keeps high-frequency trading affordable, while spot fees of 0.1% maker and 0.1% taker are competitive without being the cheapest on the market. Add copy trading, trading bots, staking, loans, and a debit card, and the result is a feature set that covers most needs without forcing users onto a second platform. Traders in supported regions get a broad toolkit under one login.

The main caveats are jurisdictional and structural. KYC is required, and a list of restricted countries including the USA, Canada, and Singapore puts the platform out of reach for many. Anyone in those markets should look elsewhere. For everyone else, Bybit remains a credible choice backed by a solid trust score and a track record of making users whole after security incidents. New signups can claim the welcome bonus worth up to $30,000, which rewards trading activity and deposits during the qualifying period. If you want the full reward, register through the partner link and enter the referral code during sign-up so the bonus terms apply to your account. Read the bonus conditions before depositing, since payouts depend on meeting volume thresholds. On balance, Bybit suits intermediate and advanced traders who value low futures costs and a wide product range, while newcomers benefit from demo trading and copy trading to ease in. Confirm your country is supported before committing funds.