Bybit Review

By: Eliot Price | Last updated: 11/23/23

Bybit is a cryptocurrency that was launched in 2018 and maintains its global headquarters in Dubai. It has quickly grown to become one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges around. This review will cover the company’s services, fees, and overall pros and cons.

Bybit Review Summary

Bybit is a cryptocurrency exchange that offers a full suite of products, including spot, derivatives, copy trading, instant purchases, an NFT marketplace, Web3 products, and more.

The exchange has a reported uptime of 99.99%, fees are relatively fair, and support seems to be doing a good job addressing customer complaints. Bybit is available in over 160 countries and in 16+ languages but is not open to residents of the US, UK, or other service-restricted countries.

That’s Bybit in a nutshell. If you want a complete review of the company and its services, keep on reading. Here’s what I’ll cover:

1. Bybit Overview
2. Bybit Services
3. Currencies and Payment Methods
4. Fees
5. Supported Countries
6. Customer Support
7. Frequently Asked Questions
8. Conclusion

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Don’t Like to Read? Watch Our 2-Minute Bybit Review

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1. Bybit Overview

Bybit was founded in 2018 by first launching BTC perpetual contracts. By 2019, they had achieved 10% of the global Bitcoin volume. In 2020, their daily trading volume surpassed $4 billion. Fast forward to today, their global headquarters is in Dubai, and they have 15 million users worldwide.

CEO and co-founder Ben Zhou has been rapidly growing the company ever since he started it back in 2018.

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2. Bybit’s Services

Bybit is a cryptocurrency exchange that offers a full suite of products and services, including the ability to trade perpetual futures. “What are derivatives and perpetual futures?” I hear you ask. Before using the platform, it is important to fully understand perpetual futures, also known as perpetual swaps.

Before we get into the advanced services offered by Bybit, it’s important to mention that they offer a full suite of products, no matter your level of cryptocurrency expertise. Bybit started as a Bitcoin futures exchange but has grown to add numerous products and services for every type of trader.

Bybit offers spot trading of over 270 assets. They have more than 200 contracts of perpetual futures. They offer a one-click buy of crypto and a P2P trading platform. They offer staking, lending, and crypto loans. There’s a Bybit Wallet, NFT marketplace, and Web3 products as well.

Now, back to those advanced trading methods…

Derivatives explained

Firstly, you are not buying or selling cryptocurrencies directly but rather a contract that refers to the currency. When you trade contracts that derive their value from an underlying asset (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other cryptocurrency), this is known as a derivative.

The basic concept of trading futures is fairly simple. A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell an asset for a set price at a specific time and date in the future.

For example, two people can set up a contract to trade 1 Bitcoin for $50,000 on the 31st of December. This guarantees a set price for the trade no matter the market value of Bitcoin when  December 31 comes around.

Historically, futures were designed for farmers looking to guarantee prices ahead of time for their crop harvest instead of risking changing prices.

Bybit offers perpetual futures trading, which is one step more complicated. Perpetual futures are contracts to trade cryptos without a specified settlement date. This means you can hold a position as long as you want, and no cryptocurrencies are actually ever traded.

As there is no settlement date on a perpetual future, it means there are added conditions to meet in order to maintain the contract. Failure to meet these requirements will mean your contract is liquidated (i.e., closed, and you can be forced to sell your holdings without wanting to).

For additional explanations about futures, read this post.

3 Things to Know About Bybit Contracts

Initial margin or collateral

With Bybit, you can trade perpetual futures contracts with leverage, meaning you can effectively loan money from an initial stake to increase your risk/reward factor. It’s a bit like a house mortgage. You use an initial deposit to leverage more capital to purchase the asset payments until you come to sell a property. Naturally, this results in either a magnified profit or a loss.

You can access leverage of up to 100x on Bybit. So, if you are using a $1,000 initial margin, you can leverage it to $100,000. This would be highly risky, though, as you are effectively making the cryptomarkets 100x more volatile. So if the price moves down by $10, you lose $1,000, basically, all of your capital, and your position will be liquidated.

Maintenance Margin

To maintain your contract, you also need to pay a maintenance margin. If we compare it to a house mortgage, the initial margin is to buy the asset, and the Maintenance Margin covers the ‘interest payments’ on the loan. With futures, your Maintenance Margin varies depending on the market prices.

On Bybit, your Maintenance Margin is the minimum margin required to continue holding a position. Your contract will be liquidated if the margin for the position becomes less than the maintenance margin level.

Read more about Bybit’s Maintenance Margin here.

Insurance Fund

The Insurance Fund is an important part of the Bybit platform. It is funded using a percentage of collateral from liquidated traders. The insurance fund is most used when markets move quickly, and trades can’t be executed in time to liquidate contracts. It stops traders from running up debts past their invested collateral and ensures traders receive profits in full from winning trades.

When Bybit first started, it was an advanced cryptocurrency futures exchange but has since grown to appeal to a broader audience. At first, it was not for novice traders or someone looking to buy their first Bitcoin. But nowadays, there is something for every type of trader in Bybit.

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3. Currencies and Payment Methods

Bybit accepts a number of different payment methods to fund your account. First, you can deposit crypto from another exchange or wallet into your newly created Bybit account. You can do this through the web or through their mobile app.

Second, you can buy crypto directly on Bybit. Users looking to purchase right away can connect their debit or credit cards and click on One-Click Buy. Bybit also accepts bank transfers, Paysera, SEPA, Google Pay, Maestro, Revolut, Advcash, and many more.

Bybit accepts deposits in 16 different fiat currencies. This list includes GBP, USD, EUR, CRC, KZT, TRY, ARS, PLN, UYU, PEN, VND, UAH, MXN, ZAR, BRL, and COP.

Bybit offers access to over 270 different cryptocurrencies, including the most popular: 

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Ripple (XRP)
• Tether (USDT)
• Solana (SOL)
• Chainlink (LINK)
• Polygon (MATIC)
• Polkadot (DOT)
• Dogecoin (DOGE)
• Shiba Inu (SHIB)

In addition to the more than 270 currencies available in the spot market, there are over 200 perpetual and quarterly futures contracts available to trade as well.

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4. Fees

Bybit trading fees are clearly listed on the platform. It runs a maker-taker fee structure. Market makers are incentivized to help add liquidity to the platform.

Maker	Taker
Provides liquidity to order books	Removes liquidity from order books
Not filled immediately	Filled immediately
Bybit derivatives fee: 0.01%	Bybit derivatives fee: 0.06%
Bybit spot fee: 0.10%	Bybit spot fee: 0.10%

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5. Supported Countries

Bybit is available in 160 countries worldwide. It does, however, maintain a list of service-restricted countries. Here are the countries Bybit is not available to:

The United States, the United Kingdom, mainland China, Singapore, Canada, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Uzbekistan, Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine (currently including the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions), and Syria

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6. Customer Support and Online Reviews

Bybit maintains a robust support center that offers answers and guides to most questions users will have. They also offer live chat and email support.

Bybit states that its customer support channels are available 24/7.

I was thoroughly impressed with Bybit’s speed when dealing with queries about its platform. The live chat function is fully operational on the website, responding to my question in seconds, and it appeared to be dealt with by an actual human, not just an auto-reply chatbot.

The query was dealt with in less than a minute and was very helpful.

On Trustpilot, Bybit only has a 2.1 rating, which does not look good, but the page seems to be clogged with fake reviews. However, a rating of 4.7 with 10+ million downloads on a much more active Google Play Store is impressive and gives me a lot of assurance in the performance of the platform across mobile and web. On the Apple App Store, Bybit has a rating of 4.7.

Adding to this, an active social media presence and a huge Reddit community make for a confidence-inspiring service delivered by Bybit.

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7. Frequently Asked Questions

Is Bybit Safe?

Security is a key concern and focus for Bybit. Here are the strategies the exchange has been employing to safeguard the security of users’ crypto assets:

• User funds are stored securely offline in cold wallets.
• Bybit protects them from unauthorized online access through a combination of advanced multi-signature, Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), and Threshold Signature Schemes (TSS).
• They conduct regular Proof of Reserves audits and publish them to the public with transparency.
• Bybit integrates a privacy-first philosophy into all its products and services.
• Data is encrypted both in storage and in transit, using desensitized query interfaces.
• Bybit’s risk controls monitor and analyze user behavior in real time.
• As soon as suspicious activity is identified, withdrawals will be subject to strengthened authentication measures.
• Bybit’s system is security-first, designed with a secure development life cycle, rigorous security testing, and ongoing bug bounty programs.

Is Bybit Legal in the US?

According to Bybit’s Service Restricted Countries list, the exchange services are unavailable in the US at the moment.

Is Bybit Legal in Canada?

According to Bybit’s Service Restricted Countries list, the exchange services are unavailable in Canada at the moment.

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8. Conclusion

Bybit is a well-built platform that delivers what it promises, including a reported 99.99% uptime. It rarely, if ever, goes offline during high demand and protects traders with an insurance fund.

Coin selection to stake contracts is wide enough to suit most traders, including Bitcoin and the Tether (USDT) stablecoin. Fees are set at the industry standard for futures exchanges, with market makers incentivized to add liquidity to the platform.

The international platform is available in most countries, although US-based customers and those from the UK still can’t use the service due to domestic regulations.

As for the customer experience, most seemed satisfied, and there is a loyal community of Bybit users across the web. Of course, where there is money at stake, there will always be a disgruntled trader, but overall, Bybit is a worthy and legitimate force in the cryptocurrency exchange and futures trading world.

Have you used Bybit? Let me know your thoughts about it in the comments section below.