Bybit Review For Canadians: Is It Legal In Canada?

What Happened To Bybit In Canada?

Bybit offered derivatives and leverage products to Canadians without registering. The Ontario Securities Commission settled with Bybit Fintech Limited in June 2022, and Bybit paid roughly USD 2.5 million, which the OSC described as disgorgement. In 2023 the exchange said it would exit the country. Its own notice paused Canadian sign-ups from May 31, then stopped new deposits and contracts on July 31, and set September 30 as the day remaining positions would be closed.

Some sources blur this into "exited September 30, 2023". The cleaner reading is that services stopped earlier and September 30 was the liquidation deadline. Either way, it is gone for Canadians, and futures and margin products of this kind are not available to Canadian retail clients at registered platforms.

What Was Bybit Like When I Used It?

ByBit is a global cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in Dubai. As someone who has tested over 60 crypto exchanges since 2016, I explored ByBit to see if it was worth using for Canadians. Personally, I found ByBit similar to Binance, but I used it for specific purposes. I used ByBit from 2019 and never had issues with them. That is my experience only, and it does not change the regulatory picture above.

It listed over 100 cryptocurrencies and, like Binance, offered futures and margin trading, which is what got it into trouble in Ontario. It claimed more than 10 million customers worldwide.

How Did Canadians Fund A Bybit Account?

CAD deposits were not supported. The routes were a card, a third-party service like Banxa, or the peer-to-peer marketplace. I recommended P2P, buying USDT with Interac e-Transfer, because it cost less. P2P was capped at $1,000 per day for unverified accounts and had no platform fee, though you had to pick a well-rated seller.

Banxa cost me about 5.31% on a $100 Bitcoin purchase. Buying $100 of Bitcoin with a debit card cost $3.05, or 3.05%, after a temporary $3 card-linking fee that was refunded within seven days. Every Canadian credit card I tried failed to link. Bybit also made you wait 24 hours before withdrawing crypto you had just bought.

What Features Did Bybit Have?

A one-click buy for debit cards, an advanced trading screen with order book and indicators, an NFT marketplace, a Launchpad for new tokens and trading bots you could copy. For earning, there was staking (up to 4.5% on Bitcoin with a flexible term at the time I wrote this) and yield farming pools. There was an OTC desk for orders over $50,000 under its VIP programme.

Verification was optional to start. Level One raised the withdrawal limit from 2 BTC to 50 BTC per day, and Level Two to 100 BTC, with proof of address. Fees for trading itself were low, from 0% to 0.1%.

Bybit's mobile app had 3.9 stars from 689 iOS reviews and 4.3 stars from over 76,000 Google Play reviews when I checked. It had everything the desktop did in a tighter layout. Support was responsive: chat sorted a TONCOIN withdrawal issue within an hour.

Was Bybit Safe?

I said yes, with a caveat: its security practices lacked transparency. It used cold storage but did not say what percentage, and it supported two-factor authentication through Google Authenticator. Trustpilot showed 1.9 stars, with many complaints about withdrawals that were often down to verification level or limits. I could not confirm those complaints from my own use.

Bybit could track your activity on the blockchain like any exchange, and if you had verified, your identity was linked to it. Phishing emails and fake social accounts using the Bybit name were common, with fake airdrops that drained wallets. Verify sender addresses, never trust unsolicited messages, and never send crypto for a promised larger return.

What Should Bybit Users Use Instead?

I used Bybit to buy rare coins and to trade early tokens. If that was your use, Kraken has the wider list among the registered platforms. If CAD deposits were your pain point, any of these take Interac.

Bybit's fees were lower, but they came with no Canadian protection and no CAD funding. A registered platform costs a bit more per trade and takes a lot of risk off the table.

Is Bybit Legit For Canadians?

Bybit was a low-cost exchange with a huge coin list, and it was never a scam in my own use. But it was not compliant in Ontario, its security disclosure was thin, and it has left the country. If you still hold funds there, withdraw to a wallet you control. For anything new, use a platform on the best crypto exchanges list.