Is Bybit a Chinese Company? Origin, Founder, Dubai HQ

By Dana Kovac · Published 2026-10-08 · Independent review — not affiliated with any exchange

Is Bybit a Chinese company? Not under current operations: Bybit is a privately held crypto exchange now headquartered in Dubai, though its founder Ben Zhou started the business in China before it moved offshore. The origin story runs through Shanghai or Singapore (sources disagree on which), a 2021 relocation forced by Beijing’s crypto crackdown, and a 2022 headquarters shift to the UAE.

This pattern — China-founded, then pushed offshore by Beijing’s bans — is common enough among large exchanges that it’s worth reading as a category rather than a one-off. Our breakdown of Chinese-origin crypto exchanges and who actually founded them covers Binance, Gate, and others that followed a similar path. Here’s what’s specifically documented about Bybit.

Where Did Bybit Actually Start?

Per Wikipedia, Bybit was founded in 2018 in Shanghai, China, by Ben Zhou, who had previously served as China general manager for the forex broker XM. That’s the most commonly cited founding account.

A separate public company-profile source, however, describes Bybit as originally based in Singapore rather than Shanghai. We found no way to definitively reconcile the two accounts, and rather than guess, it’s worth stating plainly: public sources disagree on the exact founding city. What both versions agree on is the founder (Ben Zhou) and the founding year (2018).

This kind of discrepancy isn’t unusual for exchanges that moved jurisdictions early and didn’t publish a detailed corporate history. It’s a reminder to treat “where was X founded” claims about crypto exchanges as sourced claims, not settled fact, unless a primary filing confirms it.

Is Bybit a Chinese Company Today?

No, not in terms of current headquarters or operations. After China banned crypto trading and mining in 2021, Zhou moved the Bybit team to Singapore. In 2022, the company relocated its headquarters again, this time to Dubai, where it has remained since.

That two-step relocation, Shanghai-or-Singapore, then Singapore, then Dubai, mirrors what happened to several other major exchanges after Chinese regulators tightened enforcement in 2017 and again in 2021. Binance and Gate made comparable moves in 2017; Bybit’s move came later, in 2021, after the second crackdown.

Today, per the company’s own regulatory disclosures, Bybit holds a full virtual asset platform operator licence in the UAE, granted in October 2025, alongside an Austrian crypto-asset service provider authorization from May 2025. That puts current licensing squarely in Dubai and the EU, not China.

Who Is Ben Zhou, Bybit’s Founder?

Ben Zhou is named across sources as Bybit’s founder and CEO. One profile describes him as a Chinese national residing in Dubai: born in China, with teenage years in New Zealand, and a university education in the US. Before Bybit, he worked at XM as its China general manager for forex brokerage operations.

Zhou’s personal background, where it’s documented, does not change where Bybit is legally based today, and his nationality is a biographical fact rather than evidence of anything about platform safety. What actually matters for users is jurisdiction, licensing, and whether ownership is disclosed, and on that last point, Bybit is listed as a private company with its ownership structure not publicly disclosed, per available profile data.

Is Bybit Safe and Regulated in 2026?

Partially, and the record is mixed rather than clean. Here’s the regulatory timeline as documented in public sources:

The direction of travel is toward more formal licensing (Austria, UAE) following earlier fines and settlements. That’s a meaningfully different risk profile than three years ago, but it also means Bybit’s compliance history includes real penalties, not just approvals. Readers comparing exchange risk more broadly may also want our ranking of the biggest crypto exchange hacks, which covers a separate category of incident (breaches, not regulatory settlements) that’s worth distinguishing.

How Does Bybit Compare on Fees, KYC, and Leverage?

Bybit’s published fee schedule advertises a standard spot rate around 0.1 percent for both makers and takers, with discounted tiers for high-volume accounts, as of 2026, broadly comparable to other large offshore exchanges. KYC is required for full functionality, fiat rails, and higher withdrawal tiers; Bybit is not marketed as a no-KYC platform, and that requirement has generally tightened rather than loosened over time.

On leverage, Bybit offers derivatives trading with multipliers well above what’s available to US-regulated retail traders, subject to regional eligibility. Before using high leverage on any platform, it’s worth running position math through a liquidation price calculator rather than estimating by feel.

For a side-by-side on KYC posture and fee structure against alternatives like BYDFi, OKX, and Bitget, our exchange rankings table and the individual Bybit review break down current terms exchange by exchange. Traders specifically weighing leverage limits across platforms may also find our guide to high-leverage exchanges useful, since advertised maximums and actual regional caps often differ.

What’s Still Not Disclosed About Bybit’s Ownership?

The company is listed as privately held, and no public source we reviewed lists a shareholder register, equity split, or ultimate beneficial owner. Ben Zhou is named as founder and CEO; beyond that, corporate ownership detail simply isn’t public.

This isn’t unique to Bybit among large offshore exchanges, plenty of private crypto platforms don’t publish cap tables, but it’s a fair question to ask of any exchange before depositing significant funds, Bybit included. The honest answer here is that we don’t know, and public filings don’t currently fill that gap.

Bottom Line

Bybit’s founding traces back to China (Shanghai per most sources, Singapore per at least one), but its current legal and operational center of gravity is Dubai, with growing licensing in the UAE and EU as of 2025. Calling it “a Chinese company” today is inaccurate on jurisdiction; calling it “founded by a team with Chinese roots that relocated offshore” is what the record actually supports. For the exchange’s current terms, fee schedule, and licensing claims, the primary source is Bybit’s official site, not secondary profile pages.

Dana Kovac — Covers trading tools, bots and market structure. Spent four years on a prop trading desk before going independent.