Bybit just made a move that caught my eye today. The exchange has opened trading in more than 1,000 US stocks and ETFs right inside its regular app — which means its 80 million users can now buy names like Apple, Nvidia or Tesla without ever leaving the platform they normally use for crypto.
Here is how it works. Eligible users pay with USDC straight from their existing Bybit balance, and fractional shares mean you do not need a big account to own a piece of an expensive stock. Bybit says eligible trades come with zero commissions, and trading runs 24 hours a day, five days a week — covering pre-market, regular and after-hours sessions, so some of those crypto-style around-the-clock habits partly carry over to stocks.
The plumbing behind it is what makes it interesting. Orders are executed by US broker-dealer Alpaca, which also holds the shares in custody, while the service runs through a Mauritius-regulated introducing broker. Buyers get an economic interest in the actual shares — not just a contract that mirrors the price. Cash dividends get converted into USDC and paid into user accounts, voting rights are planned for a later phase, and users have to pass identity checks and live in a supported country.
My take: this is about much more than stock trading. Bybit's co-founder Ben Zhou has talked about turning the exchange into one place for both digital and traditional markets, and that is exactly what this is. Kraken added thousands of US stocks last year, and now the biggest crypto exchanges are racing to look like full financial platforms. The old wall between crypto exchanges and stock brokers is fading fast, and stablecoins are becoming the bridge — USDC sitting in your account can jump into US tech stocks in seconds.
Honestly, I think this is one of those announcements that looks bigger six months from now. Watch whether volumes actually grow and whether other big exchanges copy this model in the coming weeks. If they do, the way millions of crypto users touch Wall Street will quietly change.
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