At the recent BIG conference held in Dubai, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou mentioned that 2026 will be a pivotal year, where reliability and compliance will provide tremendous value to customers.
(Background: Bybit CEO Ben Zhou donates tens of millions to a prestigious Singaporean university, related to regulatory licenses?)
(Additional context: Former BlackRock executive: Ethereum has become Wall Street’s infrastructure, and in the future, finance will no longer distinguish between DeFi and traditional finance)

Table of Contents

• Why is reliability important?
• The advantages of compliance leadership for customers
• The moment of integration between traditional finance and crypto

At the recent Bybit Institutional Gala in Dubai (9), CEO Ben Zhou shared his industry observations, stating that 2026 will be a key year because the future market will no longer differentiate between traditional and crypto, but will be a unified market, with “reliability” being the most critical factor.

Why is reliability important?

Ben Zhou mentioned that institutions are accelerating adoption, and Bybit has experienced remarkable growth in market trends. This indicates that the market is seeking operators with operational scale and regulatory certainty, creating a huge demand for reliability. Providing these reliable and clear infrastructures is what Bybit excels at:

Customers need certainty—liquidity, compliance, and reliable performance. Net inflows jumped from $1.3 billion in Q3 to $2.88 billion in Q4; wealth management assets (AUM) also increased from $40 million to $200 million. Institutions need partners capable of expanding under discipline, transparency, and governance.

!Screenshot 2025-12-16 14:20:28 | DappRadar - The Most Influential Blockchain News Media

The advantages of compliance leadership for customers

To achieve consistency and objective reliability for user needs, compliance has now become a trust product for institutions. Robert MacDonald, Chief Legal & Compliance Officer at Bybit, added that compliance has become an essential element driving institutional participation in crypto finance, bringing more predictable processes and regulatory frameworks, such as standardized onboarding standards for clients, compliance frameworks for products, and proactive communication channels with regulators. These are gradually transforming into advantages.

In response, Yoyee Wang, Head of Institutional Business at Bybit, showcased the new institutional-grade digital asset trading standards introduced by Bybit, including two major upgrades: the optimized INS Credit Suite and the newly developed Market Maker Gateway (MMGW) low-latency execution architecture. These integrate custody, credit, trading execution, governance, and operational resilience into a single collaborative platform, which can enhance communication with banking clients and reduce trading costs for professional investors, reflecting market trends:

From the entire market perspective, institutions care most about capital efficiency, but not at the expense of control over assets. We offer up to 5x leverage, LTV parameters compliant with traditional finance (TradFi), and support up to 1,000 sub-accounts, creating a truly institutional-level credit structure.

!Screenshot 2025-12-16 14:17:26 | DappRadar - The Most Influential Blockchain News Media

Ben Zhou also added that Bybit is continuously strengthening collaborations with major financial institutions in Europe and the Middle East to further provide reliable trading venues for professional market participants.

The UAE’s VAPO license offers exactly the framework long anticipated by institutional investors—a system that supports innovation within a rigorous regulatory environment. For institutions, the most valuable thing is not fees but uncertainty. This underpins our compliance-first strategy and sets a new standard for the maturation of global digital finance.

The moment of integration between traditional finance and crypto

As institutional and crypto users can both enter the increasingly clear environment of crypto adoption, Ben Zhou shared his industry trend predictions for the next five years. He believes that the future of traditional finance and crypto assets will be built under compliance, establishing a common infrastructure, standards, integrated workflows, and liquidity, enabling user expansion:

In the next five years, TradFi and Crypto will no longer be two separate worlds. We are moving toward a single global market supported by institutional-grade liquidity, custody, and infrastructure— and Bybit is building the operational backbone of this future. We will continue to develop the most trusted institutional trading ecosystem—built on transparency, efficient execution, and clear regulatory standards.

Finally, Ben Zhou also mentioned that the VAPO license obtained by Bybit in the UAE will reshape Bybit’s global positioning and set new standards for governance, infrastructure resilience, and institutional market access. This will also lead the way into a new era of compliant and reliable markets, providing market leadership and competitiveness.

!Screenshot 2025-12-16 14:17:56 | DappRadar - The Most Influential Blockchain News Media

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