TL;DR
- Bybit obtained an EMI license in Austria and is close to adding a MiFID license, which will allow it to offer derivatives and tokenized stocks in Europe.
- CEO Ben Zhou compared the target model to Revolut, a fintech valued at $115,000 million that operates with a full banking license in the EU and the United Kingdom.
- The exchange already operates under a MiCA license in Austria, but Zhou admitted that this regime alone is not profitable given the cost of compliance and local competition.
Bybit, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world by volume, is moving toward the launch of a “super-app” in Europe that will combine traditional banking functions with crypto asset trading, regulated derivatives and tokenized stocks. Ben Zhou, founder and CEO of the company, revealed the details in an interview.
Bybit’s Ambitions in Europe
Bybit, headquartered in Dubai and founded in 2018, already holds a MiCA license in Austria that grants it access to the European Union market. Added to that recently is an electronic money institution (EMI) license granted by the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA), and Zhou anticipated that in approximately two months it will also obtain a license under the MiFID directive, the regulatory framework that would allow it to offer financial products such as debt securities and derivatives.
“With these three licenses, we will become something similar to Revolut, plus what Bybit offers today,” said Zhou. “And all of this is fully regulated and in regulatory compliance.”
The CEO was explicit about the limitations of the current scheme: operating solely under MiCA is not profitable, given the weight of compliance costs and competition from platforms offering a broader range of products. “To be frank, we have had the MiCA license for about a year and it is not profitable,” he admitted.
Stocks, Derivatives and IBAN Accounts in a Single Platform
The EMI license will allow Bybit users to have their own IBAN accounts, receive salaries, pay for services and make local transfers. The MiFID license, in turn, will allow the exchange to offer access to regulated derivatives, US stocks and contracts for difference on commodities such as gold, silver and oil, through connections with providers such as Alpaca or Saxo Bank.
Zhou clarified that this strategy does not involve developing everything in-house. The exchange maintains its partnership with xStocks by Kraken for the tokenized stocks offering and will continue to be the largest global partner for that product. “We work with Kraken, we know the team and we talk constantly,” he noted.
