Bybit has announced the integration of a fiat gateway into its derivatives exchange.
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The achievement, dubbed a “major milestone” by CEO Ben Zhou, means traders can now purchase cryptocurrency with credit or debit card. Up until now, Bybit users were compelled to purchase assets such as BTC and USDT elsewhere before depositing them onto the exchange to trade. Thanks to a partnership with Banxa and Xanpool, Bybit users are now able to purchase BTC and ETH instantly.
Arriving just a month after Bybit added a mutual insurance fund for risk management and three months after it introduced USDT perpetual contracts, the news of a fiat pipeline is likely to win the exchange new converts – including a slew of former BitMEX traders. Once the daddy of crypto derivatives, BitMEX has lost market share this year to rivals including Bybit, and still lacks fiat facilities. As a result, traders must wait patiently for funds to clear on-chain, a process that can seem torturously slow when BTC is embarking on a breakout.
Bybit Enables Traders to Get Funded Faster
Although five cryptocurrencies are supported on Bybit – BTC, ETH, XRP, EOS, and USDT – only the former two can be purchased with fiat currency. BTC and ETH account for the vast majority of Bybit’s volume, with bitcoin alone soaking up 90% of the action. In addition to credit and debit card, Bybit’s fiat gateway will also enable funds to be deposited by bank transfer.
Bybit is not the first derivatives exchange to add fiat support, but in having done so, it finds itself ranked alongside the minority of futures platforms that have achieved this feat. For regulatory, logistical, and security reasons, derivatives exchanges are less likely to support fiat deposits than their spot exchange counterparts.
Numerous fiat currencies including USD, AUD, CAD, EUR, SGD and GBP are supported by Bybit’s Buy Crypto portal. Funds are credited to the user’s trading account as soon as the transaction has been processed. To celebrate the introduction of fiat support, Bybit is offering users a $10 BTC bonus for every $100 of BTC or ETH they purchase from June 22 – July 22, up to a maximum $50 per person.
Fiat and Stablecoins Oil the Cryptoconomy
Tether (USDT) remains the dominant form of fiat within the crypto market, regularly seeing double its $9.76 billion market cap traded on a daily basis. Crypto traders and businesses, aware of the dangers of reliance on any one issuer, have sought diversification into other stablecoins that are more easily audited. At the same time, exchanges and wallets have integrated fiat gateways that allow traders to swap from fiat-crypto instantly without the need to touch stablecoins. Bybit’s perpetual contracts might be denominated in USDT, the reference currency of the derivatives market, but it now supports a family of fiat currencies thanks to its newly installed payment gateway.