Bybit will take its long-awaited shot at America through a deal with an established domestic broker instead of building its own licenses from the ground up, CEO Ben Zhou said in a CoinDesk interview published October 21. Zhou floated Interactive Brokers as the archetype of what Bybit wants: a house with a deep American client book that has stayed out of crypto so far. The goal is blunt — to go after Robinhood (HOOD), whose shares closed near $102 when the interview ran, on its home turf. Bybit ranks second only to one rival in global crypto trading volume and counts north of 80 million users spread over 180-plus countries and territories.
The pitch is simple: rent the regulatory infrastructure, don't build it. Zhou called teaming up with a local player Bybit's usual route into new markets, and he framed the ideal ally as one that already owns the customers and wants a door into digital assets.
The slow road is what Bybit wants to avoid. Coinbase spent years collecting money-transmitter permissions state by state and crowned the effort with New York's BitLicense — a journey Zhou reckons eats two to three years. Rather than start that clock, he said he would rather wait on federal legislation: the CLARITY Act, or an SEC-led regime that would collapse everything into "one regulator, one license." His years of staying out of the US, he argued, left Bybit's record there spotless, so the firm can pounce the moment the rules turn favorable.
Why it matters
There is already a working prototype of the partnership model. On October 12, Bybit opened the door on a four-figure menu of US-listed shares and ETFs for customers outside America — accounts funded in USDC, orders executed by Alpaca Securities (a FINRA/SIPC member), with Mauritius-regulated Infra Capital sitting between as introducing broker. Commissions are zero on eligible trades, positions can be sliced into fractions, trading runs nearly around the clock on weekdays, and payouts roll straight back into USDC. That product sells US-listed shares to the whole world minus the US — which is exactly the gap a domestic broker partner would close. The exchange's broader direction makes the move legible too: Zhou wants a multi-asset trading leader, not a crypto-only venue, and the Europe "everything app" — derivatives plus tokenized stocks, aimed at Q1 2027 — is the same licensed-products logic on a different continent. For Robinhood, which already serves stocks and crypto inside one app, the threat is a global top-two exchange explicitly naming it as the rival to beat.
What to watch
- The partner's name. Interactive Brokers is only an example Zhou cited. The size and regulatory standing of whoever actually signs will show how fast and how serious the American push is.
- Federal legislation. Zhou is openly waiting for the CLARITY Act or an SEC-led single-regulator framework before choosing his moment.
- The UK flank. Zhou called Britain "a pretty good market" where no global venue dominates and Coinbase is the main player — but entry costs rival an EU MiCA license. He has met the FCA and House of Lords figures earlier this year and has not yet picked a London office.
- Europe's everything app. Targeting Q1 2027, it will be the first full-scale test of the licensed-products model outside Asia.
MarketRadar take
| Route | Time to market | Cost | Licenses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broker partnership (Bybit's plan) | Months after a deal | Split with partner | Partner's own |
| State-by-state licensing (Coinbase route) | 2–3 years | Built from scratch | All own-built |
The arithmetic favors the deal: a broker alliance turns years of compliance work into a single negotiation, and Bybit's Alpaca-backed stock product proves the plumbing already works. The risk is the one Zhou admitted himself — he is describing intent, not a signed agreement, and the US market is "highly competitive and very saturated" in his own words. Until a partner's name lands, the timeline is a hope, not a plan.
