The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume entered the year riding momentum and exited it having survived one of the biggest security breaches in crypto history, expanded its global regulatory footprint, and quietly built one of the industry’s most diversified trading ecosystems. The result: 80 million registered users, sustained No. 2 market positioning, and a platform increasingly designed to blur the line between crypto, traditional finance, and on-chain activity.

If 2024 was about scale, 2025 was about resilience.

A Year Defined by Contrasts

Bybit’s headline numbers tell a story of growth. Registered users climbed from 50 million to over 80 million in a single year. Trading volumes remained resilient through a choppy market cycle. New product lines—from tokenized equities to high-leverage TradFi instruments—went live at a pace few centralized exchanges attempted.

But February rewrote the narrative.

A cyberattack linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group resulted in the theft of roughly $1.4 billion worth of ETH, instantly placing Bybit at the center of global scrutiny. For many exchanges, such an event would have triggered a death spiral. For Bybit, it became a defining moment.

From Breach to Benchmark: Security After the Hack

The February incident was one of the largest exchange breaches on record, but it did not become a customer-loss event.

Bybit honored its 1:1 reserve guarantee, reporting zero client fund losses. Reserves were fully restored within 72 hours, supported by industry partners, while more than 350,000 withdrawal requests were processed in the first 12 hours alone. At a time when confidence is the scarcest currency in crypto, speed mattered as much as solvency.

What followed surprised skeptics.

Within 30 days, Bybit’s BTC liquidity rebounded to $13 million in daily volume, surpassing industry benchmarks tracked by Kaiko. According to Glassnode, ETH trading volume on Bybit hit a new daily all-time high of $8.5 billion during the summer rally—after the hack, not before it.

That recovery underscored a critical distinction: users did not flee.

Internally, the breach triggered a sweeping overhaul. Bybit completed nine security audits in a single month and rolled out more than 50 security upgrades. The company also launched the Lazarus Bounty program, inviting independent security experts to help track stolen funds—an initiative aimed at improving industry-wide defenses, not just internal safeguards.

In a sector still grappling with reputational damage from past collapses, Bybit’s response reset expectations for crisis management.

Regulatory Alignment Goes Global

While security dominated headlines, regulation quietly reshaped Bybit’s operational footprint in 2025.

In Europe, the exchange’s Vienna-based entity achieved full MiCA compliance across applicable EEA countries through local authorization in Austria. As MiCA becomes the defining regulatory framework for crypto in Europe, early compliance gives Bybit a structural advantage over competitors still navigating transitional regimes.

The Middle East marked another milestone. In October, Bybit secured the UAE’s first SCA Virtual Asset Platform Operator License, enabling nationwide trading, custody, and fiat services. With the UAE positioning itself as a global crypto hub, the license places Bybit at the center of one of the industry’s most regulator-friendly markets.

The UK followed. After a two-year hiatus, Bybit relaunched services through a partnership with FCA-regulated Archax, offering spot and P2P trading under strict financial promotion rules. Roughly 100 trading pairs are now available to UK users—a measured return, but a meaningful one in one of the world’s most tightly regulated financial markets.

Taken together, these moves signal a clear strategy: regulated presence over regulatory arbitrage.

Spot Trading: Winning by Being Early

Bybit Spot spent 2025 refining a strategy that prioritizes early access over volume-chasing listings.

Instead of racing to list already-saturated assets, the exchange focused on identifying projects before peak hype. The results were hard to ignore. TRUMP surged as much as 548% after its January listing. Community-driven DeFi token TUNA jumped 2,637% on its first day. MET posted 255% day-one gains.

While such returns are inherently volatile, they reinforced Bybit Spot’s positioning as a discovery venue rather than a lagging aggregator.

Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization became another focal point. Bybit expanded support for assets like XAUT, which gained 127%, and launched xStocks, enabling on-chain trading of U.S. equities. Combined with up to $40 million in user rewards across select projects, Bybit leaned into incentives that convert market momentum into direct user participation.

In a crowded exchange landscape, differentiation increasingly comes from timing, not just liquidity.

Trading Volume and the Hybrid Exchange Model

Despite market headwinds, Bybit maintained its No. 2 ranking globally by monthly trading volume throughout 2025. Even during the typically slower winter season, the exchange recorded a 24-hour spot trading volume of $9.1 billion on December 22.

But the more interesting shift was architectural.

Bybit is no longer positioning itself as a pure centralized exchange. Instead, it’s building a hybrid platform that merges centralized execution, on-chain discovery, decentralized liquidity, and traditional financial instruments within a single interface.

Key components of that strategy rolled out rapidly:

• Bybit Alpha now allows users to explore on-chain tokens, liquidity farming, and emerging opportunities without leaving the app.
• Byreal, a Solana-based DEX incubated by Bybit, surpassed $1 billion in cumulative volume within 10 weeks, ranking among Solana’s top 10 DEXs by fees and revenue.
• Bybit TradFi, launched in May, brought gold, forex, commodities, indices, and over 100 stock CFDs to a major CEX for the first time—offering up to 500x leverage for eligible users and 24/5 trading on major U.S. stocks by September.
• xStocks integration expanded tokenized equities and ETFs with 24/7 settlement on Solana via Backed Finance.

The message is unmistakable: Bybit wants to be the interface where crypto-native and TradFi traders converge.

Institutional and Yield Growth

Regulatory progress translated directly into institutional traction.

Bybit Institutional reported asset inflows rising from $1.3 billion in Q3 to $2.88 billion in Q4. Its wealth management arm saw assets under management grow fivefold—from $40 million to $200 million—highlighting growing demand for structured crypto products.

On the yield side, Bybit Earn continued experimenting with on-chain strategies. Mantle Vault, a stablecoin yield product optimized for APR, reached $52 million in AUM within seven days of launch. Mantle’s deeper partnership with Bybit positioned MNT as a multi-use asset supporting fee discounts, leverage trading, RWA tokenization, and institutional-grade DeFi liquidity.

This ecosystem-first approach reflects a broader industry trend: exchanges evolving into financial platforms rather than transaction-only venues.

WSOT 2025: Competition at Scale

Bybit’s World Series of Trading (WSOT) remained a cultural anchor.

The 2025 edition featured a $10 million USDT prize pool and set a Guinness World Record for the most participants in an online trading competition within 24 hours—71,765 active traders on August 27. Overall, WSOT generated $172.8 billion in trading volume, with participation spanning 520,451 traders across 202 countries and regions.

Beyond spectacle, Bybit pledged 300,000 USDT to blockchain education through the Bybit Rising Fund, supporting scholarships, hackathons, and training programs.

A Different Kind of Strength

Bybit did not emerge from 2025 unscathed—but it emerged intact, larger, and more structurally diversified.

Surviving a $1.4 billion hack without customer losses, achieving regulatory wins across Europe, the Middle East, and the UK, and expanding into TradFi, DeFi, and RWAs all point to a company betting on longevity over hype.

As crypto exchanges face rising regulatory scrutiny and market consolidation, 2025 positioned Bybit less as a trading venue and more as a financial infrastructure platform.

Quiet strength, it turns out, can be louder than growth headlines.