Bybit Expands Into US Stocks and Launches Tokenised Equity Product

The exchange launched its US equities offering on 12 October, enabling eligible users to trade more than 1,000 stocks and exchange-traded funds using USDC. The product supports fractional shares and provides 24-hour access five days a week, spanning pre-market, regular trading hours, and after-hours sessions.

Chief executive Ben Zhou revealed the plans during the company's biannual 'Keynote with Ben' session on 14 October. The stock trading functionality integrates with Bybit's existing Unified Trading Account, which already handles crypto derivatives and foreign exchange.

Bybit is preparing to launch mStocks in November, a more structurally ambitious product developed alongside blockchain platform Mantle. The tokenised stocks will be backed one-to-one by real underlying securities, with plans for around-the-clock conversion between eligible stocks and their tokenised equivalents.

Once converted, these tokens can serve as collateral within the Unified Trading Account and trade through automated market maker liquidity pools on the Mantle network. The architecture effectively layers blockchain-native trading infrastructure onto traditional equity positions.

The exchange also operates IPO Express, launched in June, which provides eligible users with access to select initial public offerings at the offering price through tokenised representations. SpaceX was the first offering available through the service, extending Bybit's reach from secondary to selected primary markets.

Bybit's traditional finance perpetuals business has recorded more than $180 billion in cumulative trading volume since entering CFD markets in 2022. The platform now offers over 600 instruments spanning equities, indices, commodities, and FX.

Recent additions include Forex Perps and Perp Options, a derivatives structure the company describes as industry-first. The product is built on top of TradFi perpetuals rather than spot prices, creating a layered derivative instrument.

The regulatory landscape for tokenised securities remains fragmented across jurisdictions. Bybit secured five new licences and regulatory approvals during 2026, covering the European Union, the Cayman Islands, Indonesia, South Africa, and El Salvador. However, the company did not specify which licence categories were obtained or which product lines they cover.

That ambiguity carries weight: whether mStocks is classified as a security, a derivative, or a stablecoin-adjacent instrument will determine where it can be offered and under which disclosure regime. The collateral interoperability between crypto and stock positions within a single account structure presents real appeal for active traders, but also raises margin and risk management questions that regulators are likely to scrutinise closely.

Several competitors are pursuing parallel strategies. Robinhood has moved to extend its crypto and equities offering across European markets, while Coinbase has signalled interest in expanding into derivatives and equities products for international users.

Traditional prime brokers and retail platforms including Interactive Brokers have integrated crypto custody and trading alongside conventional equities, compressing the differentiation Bybit seeks. The exchange's distinctive angle centres on the unified account structure that allows cross-collateralisation between asset classes.

Bybit's payments infrastructure now reaches more than 5,000 merchants across over 15 countries through its Bybit Card and Bybit Pay services, with more than four million cards issued. The infrastructure appears designed to extend platform stickiness beyond the trading session, though the commercial model for the card programme and merchant network unit economics were not disclosed.

On the security front, the company intercepted more than 30,000 suspicious withdrawal requests in the first half of 2026, representing over $700 million in protected assets. Bybit also launched Bybit AI in September as a conversational assistant for trading, account management, and customer support.

We have brought trading, investing, payments and AI together, and we are continuing to add more markets and more ways to use them, Zhou said.