Bybit CEO Ben Zhou Prefers Broker Partnerships Over 2-3 Years of US Licensing

Partners, Not State Licenses

Bybit will enter the United States through a partnership with an established broker rather than collecting licenses state by state, CEO Ben Zhou said in a recent interview. Zhou, who runs the second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume, named Interactive Brokers as the kind of firm he has in mind: a partner that already has a US client base but has stayed out of crypto. Partnerships are Bybit's standard playbook when it enters a new territory, he added. The company has been gathering licenses around the world as it prepares to offer a wider set of regulated products. The alternative at home in the US is the route Coinbase took, gathering money transmitter licenses state after state before securing a New York BitLicense. Zhou put that process at two to three years and said he would rather wait for federal rules to settle. In his view, a two-year licensing sprint makes little sense if a federal framework could land first. If the SEC took over as the single regulator, it would mean “one regulator, one license” covering the whole country at the federal level. The CLARITY Act, the bill meant to settle which regulator oversees digital assets, failed to clear the 60-vote threshold it needed in the Senate on September 15, so that single-license outcome is not close. SEC Chair Paul Atkins has since said the agency will keep working on comprehensive crypto market structure rules. Zhou framed Bybit's long absence from the US as an advantage rather than a delay. Because the exchange carries no regulatory record in the country, it can move the moment conditions improve, entering with “a completely clear record there” and waiting “for the best moment to enter, rather than rush to FOMO in.”

Robinhood's 28.4M Customers Set the Bar

Zhou called the US “big and hugely important” but also “highly competitive and very saturated,” with Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa similarly crowded. Robinhood, the listed brokerage Bybit would go up against, reported 28.4 million funded customers, $369 billion in platform assets and $1.31 billion in quarterly revenue in its Q2 2026 filing with the SEC, though its crypto trading revenue fell 38% year over year to $100 million as growth shifted toward crypto options and event contracts. Interactive Brokers itself rolled out ether staking for US clients this month, shrinking the pool of large brokers still outside crypto. Bybit is not starting from zero on the partnership model. Its current US stock and ETF offering routes orders through a Mauritius-licensed introducing broker, with execution and custody handled by the US broker Alpaca. The exchange is also rebuilding after the largest theft in crypto history: on February 21, 2025, the Lazarus Group drained roughly $1.5 billion in ether from the platform. Bybit restored its reserves within 72 hours through emergency borrowing and large deposits and later published a proof-of-reserves report audited by Hacken. Spot market share slid from about 11% to 4% after the incident before recovering to the 6-7% range, market data shows. The exchange now counts more than 82 million registered users across 181 countries and regions, per its 2026 vision announcement, and it plans an everything app for Europe with crypto futures trading and tokenized stocks as early as the first quarter of next year. The UK, Zhou said, is the market where competition is least concentrated and no global exchange dominates, with Coinbase probably the biggest local player. He met the Financial Conduct Authority and members of the House of Lords earlier this year, though a London office is still undecided, and he put the cost of UK entry close to that of an EU MiCA license. (Readers new to the platform can start with our How to Trade on Bybit guide.)

A Shrinking List of Partners

Both routes Zhou laid out share one problem: neither is in Bybit's hands. The partnership option depends on finding large brokers still outside crypto, and Interactive Brokers' move into ether staking this month shows that list is getting shorter by the quarter. The wait-and-see option slipped further away when the CLARITY Act missed the Senate's 60-vote bar on September 15. What Bybit does control is patience. With 82 million users and a spot share back in the 6-7% range after the 2025 hack, it can afford to sit out the US longer than a smaller rival could. The cost of waiting is entrenchment: every quarter Robinhood and Coinbase deepen their US franchises, entry gets more expensive, whichever door Bybit eventually picks.