Bybit: Q&A

Ben Zhou — CEO and founder

1. Who is Ben Zhou?

My previous background was in retail forex. I ran an FX broker for 8 years before founding Bybit in early 2018. I got into cryptocurrency in 2016 and after getting to understand enough about it, I saw many inefficiencies with the current derivative trading landscape. It became obvious to me that traders were not getting the best trading experience, basic order executions were not up to standard, there was poor customer support and the overall trading experience was not satisfactory. That is why I wanted to launch Bybit and make a difference, as traders in crypto were crying out for an overall well-performing exchange with fast responding support that cares for its customers.

2. What are your interests/hobbies aside crypto?

As a startup business CEO, I lose a lot of family time for work. I like to spend as much time with the family and kid as possible when I am not working. I love playing baseball and sometimes go to the local clubs to play.

3. When and how you got involved with cryptocurrencies?

In around 2016, I became more and more interested in the fastly developing world of crypto. I was particularly interested in the tech itself and started to dig many of the projects at the time. I even become a KOL myself for a while and did a bit of project review stuff and such on YouTube. As I got to understand crypto more and more, I started to look into margin trading and derivatives trading as that is where my forte lies. I saw traders are not getting the best possible experience from exchanges. So, that’s why ultimately I decided to form Bybit with my co-founders in early 2018.

4. How do you explain crypto to older investors?

It’s understandable why cryptocurrencies may be confusing to older investors. Some may say it as a threat to cash, something they have known all their lives. And some may not see it as a worthy investment compared to traditional ones such as real estate. It’s a step into the unknown. But I would just say, do your research. There’s a lot of material out there which can give you a balanced and informed opinion on the subject. There’s a reason why so many people are investing in cryptocurrencies, and sure it might not be for everyone. But you may just see that it is for you. And of course, I would also say, don’t invest what you can’t afford. Actually, this advice I would give to any potential investor, not just older ones!

5. If you had to shill any cryptocurrency, what would it be and why?

BTC for sure. But I do still have my bags of shitcoins which I don’t even look at anymore. As this bull run comes back, we can sense that the community is definitely focusing more on BTC all over the world. Also If we look at cryptocurrency from a trader’s perspective, probably only BTC is fundamentally sound.

6. Your highlight and lowlight moment in crypto?

We all know the world of crypto is like a rollercoaster with its volatility, so choosing a highlight and lowlight moment is honestly pretty difficult, but I guess if I had to choose, my highlight so far would be Bybit passing the 2 billion daily trading volume mark in late June. It was a testament to how remarkably far we’ve come as a company in such a short time. As a lowpoint, I guess, it would be the bear market of last year. The Bybit team was born and went through the whole bear market, which now looking back I am actually glad of. It gave us the chance to focus on building our product and team. At Bybit we focus on the fundamentals of any exchange, that is to provide the best trading experience possible and to always put our customers first. I truly believe that without the low points, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

7. #1 recommendation to crypto noobs?

Expanding on my point of do your research, I would say learn the risks of crypto trading before you dip your toes in the water. It can be very volatile, but at Bybit we do everything we can to protect traders from price swings, which can happen from time to time. Risk management is the key to any leveraged or margin trading. We offer education and also community discussions on trading techniques and risk management. Lastly, I would say do some research in terms of technical analysis. Analyzing charts, for example on TradingView, can be very useful in determining where the market is going to go.

8. Why Bybit is better than the rest of cryptocurrency derivatives trading platforms?

We understand our traders and build the exchange for them. Exchanges need to be stable and offer non stop order matching to start with. We are proud to say that ever since we launched, we have experienced no server downtime or maintenance, All of our updates are done through hot patches with grey releases. There are also no order rejection or overload issues as we have a very powerful matching engine.

At the heart of Bybit’s philosophy is the mantra is “we listen, we care, we improve”. It is clear to me that listening to the needs of customers has been neglected by some exchanges. We offer 24/7 live chat multi-lingual customer service and we are constantly in our community to collect feedback on our next improvement.

Lastly, we know what traders need to execute an all entry and exit trading strategy at one go so we are the only exchange that allows clients to set up Take-Profit and Stop-Loss with an entry order and also allow trailing stops to exit positions. This is all part of our commitment to offering the most convenient and efficient trading experience for our customers.

9. What is Bybit’s biggest success factor, what is the story behind it?

Really I have got to put the success of Bybit down to the hard work of my team. Our tech team has employees from prestigious firms such as Morgan Stanley and Tencent, and it is their expertise which has for sure given us the edge in technological aspects over other platforms. We also have a great finance team, with Yaxi, a Bybit co-founder and CFO, having a background in capital investment and dealing with the investment and capital financing side of things. Elsewhere, we also have very hard-working BD and marketing teams, focusing on the English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean markets. Russian has been added to the platform recently, too, so we are also looking to expand the team in this area.

10. From zero to hero, how did this happen so fast?

I wouldn’t want to classify myself as a hero! However, I am of course proud of how much we’ve grown in such a relatively short period of time. I see every day as an opportunity to make the platform better, and not be content with what we’ve got. If you become complacent in life, but especially in such a fast-moving field as crypto, you fall behind, simple as that, so this is something I don’t even contemplate. Also, external factors have undoubtedly helped in our growth, and by this, I’m primarily talking about the recovery of the market. This has meant more people are trading, and we have been opportunists in trying to grab as big a slice of the pie as possible.

11. What is next for Bybit?

We have some exciting developments in the pipeline, for sure. In the coming weeks, we will become the first cryptocurrency derivatives exchange to have full trading integration with Tradingview. The integration will allow TradingView users to view Bybit price charts, and in a global first for a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, also allow users to directly trade on Bybit through the TradingView platform. Also, we have a coin swap function that will be available soon. This will enable traders to directly swap between the four cryptocurrencies available to trade on site (BTC, ETH, XRP and EOS). And coming up later in the year, probably around October time, our IOS and Android mobile app will launch.

12. Regulations, and compliance, what is the biggest threats and problems for Bybit?

Cryptocurrency, and crypto exchanges, is a very fast-moving industry, and regulations are changing all the time. However, there is no regulation for derivatives exchanges like Bybit as of yet, but we are committed to being fully compliant if and when this changes, and we would be the first to comply. As of now, we don’t allow some people located in countries such as the US to trade at Bybit. We don’t see this as a threat or problem, however, as we are 100% confident in our ability to comply with any regulations which are in place.

An absolute pleasure to host Ben on this Q&A, they have indisputably created THE BEST cryptocurrency derivatives exchange! I have completely migrated from Bitmex to Bybit, no more incomplete orders, no more liquidated trades due to system overload, no more Bitmex bullshit.

If you enjoy the read, follow me on Twitter, and use my referral links:

Bybit, Binance, Bitmax, Kucoin, Hotbit.

Is good for Karma!

This is not a financial advise and you should do your own research before investing, and understand if you are willing to lose this investment, as there is always risk in innovative markets as technology, fintech, and cryptocurrencies, due to regulations, geopolitical issues, and what not.