In the competitive landscape of global cryptocurrency exchanges, the United States has always been a market that is hard to bypass. It not only has mature capital markets, active institutional investors, and a huge retail trading community, but also plays an important role in the integration of crypto assets and traditional finance. However, the stronger the appeal of the U.S. market, the more obvious the complexity of entry becomes.
For crypto platforms hoping to do business in the United States, regulation is not a step that can be completed after products are launched. Different businesses may involve different federal and state regulatory requirements, and matters such as money transmission, customer identity verification, anti-money laundering, asset custody, and consumer protection will also affect what products the platform can offer, which customers it can serve, and how large a scope its business can cover.
U.S.-based platforms such as Coinbase have accumulated a user base, compliance experience, and brand recognition through years of operation. Even if new entrants possess global liquidity and mature trading systems, it does not mean they can directly replicate their original business models. If they choose to apply for relevant licenses state by state, platforms need to invest substantial time and resources and continuously respond to differences in regulatory requirements and business practices among states.
In an interview with CoinDesk, Ben Zhou estimated that applying state by state could take two to three years. This time estimate is his personal assessment of the cost of market entry and does not mean that all applications will follow the same cycle, but it reveals the real problem Bybit faces: the difficulty of U.S. business may lie not in whether it can offer competitive trading products, but in whether it can obtain the market access conditions required for lawful operation at a sustainable cost.
Cooperating with Interactive Brokers means changing the way of entering the market
The idea proposed by Bybit of cooperating with established financial institutions such as Interactive Brokers is noteworthy because it does not place the focus of competition entirely on building its own U.S. business system, but instead seeks partners that can complement it.
For brokers already operating in the United States, customer relationships, compliance processes, account systems, and market operations capabilities are the result of long-term accumulation; for international crypto exchanges, trading infrastructure, digital asset liquidity, crypto product experience, and global user operations may be their advantages. If the two sides can find suitable business boundaries, they have the opportunity to shorten the preparation cycle for market entry through cooperation and reduce duplicated construction.
However, cooperation does not equal automatically obtaining a license, nor does it mean that the partner's regulatory qualifications can unconditionally cover all of Bybit's business. Whether services can ultimately be provided still depends on the cooperation structure, specific products, customer types, fund flow arrangements, and the requirements of relevant regulators regarding the business model. Interactive Brokers is currently only one of the potential cooperation targets cited by Ben Zhou, and there is no public information indicating that an agreement has been reached.
From a business strategy perspective, the core of this idea is to reallocate the cost of market entry. Assuming the platform accesses existing customer channels and infrastructure through cooperation, its investment focus may shift from comprehensively building local operations to product integration, technical connectivity, risk control, and partner management. But cooperation will also bring new constraints, such as revenue sharing, customer ownership, product launch pace, and how the two sides divide responsibilities when risk events occur.
Therefore, what really determines whether this model can work is not the fame of the partner, but whether the two sides can establish clear, executable business arrangements that meet regulatory requirements.
Bybit's real rival is the financial platform that has already formed user habits
Understanding Bybit's potential U.S. layout as a direct challenge to Coinbase cannot fully explain this competition. Ben Zhou also mentioned Robinhood as a target, and the competitive dimensions represented by the two are not exactly the same.
Coinbase has crypto asset trading and related services as an important business foundation and has established considerable brand recognition in the U.S. market; Robinhood centers on a financial trading experience for retail users, allowing users to access multiple types of investment products on one platform. For consumers, when choosing a trading platform, asset types and fees are certainly important, but account opening processes, fund deposits and withdrawals, account management, app experience, and trust in the platform also affect usage decisions.
This means that competition among crypto exchanges is expanding from a single trading function to a contest for the entire financial services gateway. Users may not be willing to register an additional platform just to buy one asset. If traditional brokers can integrate digital asset services into existing accounts, or if crypto platforms can provide a more convenient experience through mature local channels, financial needs originally belonging to different platforms may gradually converge.
Bybit has international market operating experience, but U.S. users will not naturally migrate to a new platform simply because of its overseas trading scale. Brand recognition, compliance trust, product fit, and local service capabilities still need to be rebuilt locally. Cooperating with established brokers may shorten part of the path, but it cannot directly eliminate user acquisition costs and market competition pressure.
In other words, what Bybit needs to answer is not "whether it can bring global products to the United States," but "why U.S. users should choose a new service gateway in addition to existing financial platforms."
Waiting for the CLARITY Act reflects that the regulatory path remains a key variable
Ben Zhou also said that Bybit may wait for the advancement of the U.S. Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act) or further observe the specific content of new regulations. He also predicted that in the future the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may assume a more concentrated role in crypto asset regulation, thereby forming a relatively unified regulatory framework.
This part of the statement needs to distinguish between two things: first, the company's judgment about the future of regulation; second, the legal regime that has already taken effect and can be used as a basis for conducting business. The former can influence the company's strategic planning, while only the latter directly determines what conditions specific businesses need to meet. For Bybit, waiting for clearer rules may help reduce strategic uncertainty, but waiting itself also has costs, including missing user growth windows and allowing competitors to continue accumulating market advantages.
Regulatory unification may indeed reduce some of the complexity of cross-state operations, but it does not necessarily mean that all crypto businesses will be subject to a single license or handled independently by the same regulator. The legal attributes of different assets, the specific forms of trading services, and links such as custody, brokerage, and money transmission may still correspond to different regulatory requirements.
Therefore, the progress of the CLARITY Act is worth watching, but it should not be regarded as a certain timetable for Bybit's entry into the United States. For companies, a more feasible way to prepare may be to simultaneously assess multiple scenarios: cooperation models feasible under the existing system, new paths that may emerge after future rule changes, and how to control investment while regulatory uncertainty remains.
From the United States to the United Kingdom, global expansion is becoming a test of resource allocation
The United States is not the only market Bybit is focused on. According to CoinDesk, Ben Zhou also regards the United Kingdom as a region with potential, but he pointed out that the local market is moving toward a new crypto regulatory regime, the cost of entry may be quite high, and Bybit is still studying relevant arrangements.
This shows that the challenge facing international exchanges is not just finding markets that have not yet been fully developed. A more refined trade-off is needed among market size, competition density, regulatory costs, and potential revenue. Even if a market has relatively limited local competitors, if the cost of obtaining licenses, building compliance teams, and maintaining operations is too high, it may not bring ideal returns on investment.
For Bybit, business reach in more than 180 countries and regions worldwide and a large registered user base are important resources for international operations, but they cannot be simply converted into competitive advantages in every new market. Regulatory systems, payment habits, investor protection requirements, and financial services ecosystems vary from place to place, and the same set of products may not be suitable for direct replication.
This also means that the expansion methods of exchanges in the future may become more diverse: some markets adopt the path of independently applying for licenses and building local teams, some markets seek cooperation with banks, brokers, or other licensed institutions, and still other markets need to adjust the pace of entry according to regulatory changes. There is no absolute superiority or inferiority among different paths; the key is whether companies can invest resources in the most feasible businesses.
After the $1.5 billion security incident, compliance and trust remain unavoidable tests
When discussing the possibility of Bybit entering the United States, its own risk management record cannot be ignored. In February 2025, Bybit suffered a major security incident in which approximately $1.5 billion in virtual assets were stolen. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation subsequently attributed the incident to North Korea-related cyber activity and called it the "TraderTraitor" operation.
This incident does not mean that Bybit cannot enter new markets, nor can it alone determine future judgments by regulators, but it reminds the market that the competitiveness of an exchange is not only reflected in trading volume, number of products, and global coverage. Asset custody, key management, internal permission controls, emergency response, customer asset protection, and incident disclosure mechanisms are also factors that institutional partners and regulators need to consider when evaluating a platform.
If Bybit hopes to cooperate with mature U.S. brokers in the future, the partner will need to assess not only business opportunities but also technical risks, operational continuity, and reputational risk. For traditional financial institutions, the additional revenue brought by cooperation must match potential compliance responsibilities and customer risks. For Bybit, how to prove that its risk control mechanisms can operate continuously may be as important as product competitiveness.
In addition, cross-border business also involves the regulatory attitudes of different regions. The news material mentioned that Bybit had been placed on investor alert lists by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and relevant institutions in the Taiwan region, and emphasized that its service status in those places is restricted or has not been compliantly established. Such information needs to be understood in conjunction with the specific announcements and scope of application of the relevant regulatory authorities, and it cannot be directly inferred that other jurisdictions will necessarily adopt the same approach; however, it shows that international operations must respond to the legal requirements of each location one by one, rather than relying only on a global brand or user scale.
Conclusion: The real competition may take place beyond the trading interface
Bybit's consideration of exploring the U.S. market through local financial institutions such as Interactive Brokers is still a strategic idea at this stage, not a market entry plan that has already been implemented. But this statement reveals a broader industry trend: the international expansion of crypto exchanges is shifting from competition in liquidity, trading varieties, and user growth to comprehensive competition in compliance infrastructure, financial channels, and user relationships.
For Bybit, cooperating with local institutions may be a path worth evaluating, but it cannot replace regulatory licenses, risk management, and localized operations. For the U.S. financial market, if the boundary between crypto services and traditional brokerages continues to change, competition may no longer be limited to crypto-native platforms, but may extend to comprehensive financial institutions with mature customer relationships.
Ultimately, whether Bybit can enter the United States depends on whether the regulatory environment, cooperation arrangements, and business model can form a closed loop; and whether it can gain a firm foothold in the United States depends on whether the platform can establish a long-term credible balance among security, compliance, and user experience. For the entire industry, this may be more worthy of continued observation than any statement about "challenging the giants."
Publishing suggestion: The core angle of this article is "the shift in the logic of exchanges going overseas," rather than simply playing up direct competition between Bybit and Coinbase. Before official publication, it is recommended to re-check the latest legislative progress of the CLARITY Act, as well as Bybit's regulatory list status in Singapore and the Taiwan region; at the same time, retain the qualification that "Interactive Brokers is only a potential cooperation target, and the two parties have no confirmed cooperation," to avoid mistakenly writing management's example as a signed cooperation agreement.
