Can I use Bybit in the United States? The simple answer is No. However, with further research the answer is Yes. An even longer answer is Maybe. But the correct answer is Yes, but you’re going to need a VPN to use Bybit in the USA.
Recently, the US has cracked down on cryptocurrency regulations, making it more difficult for citizens to trade in crypto. This is problematic in many ways, costing law-abiding, tax-paying individuals potential profits and preventing them from having trading careers.
Customers that are located in or are residents of the United States are restricted from accessing or trading on this platform. This limitation also applies to several other countries, the United Kingdom for instance.
But don’t you worry! In this article, you will learn how to use VPN Unlimited to use Bybit in the US.
- What is Bybit?
- How Does Bybit Work?
- Can I Use ByBit in The US
- Why Can’t I Use Bybit in The US?
- How Can I Access Bybit in The US?
- What Are The Pros And Cons of Bybit?
- Is Bybit Legal to Trade With?
- What Cryptocurrencies Can I Trade on Bybit?
- Can I Use Bybit in the US with a VPN?
- What Are Some Features of The Bybit Platform?
What is Bybit?
Bybit is a cryptocurrency exchange based in Singapore. The exchange primarily focuses on creating an innovative, intuitive, transparent, and secure platform for its clients.
The platform offers three derivative assets that consist of inverse perpetual contracts, inverse future contracts, and linear perpetual contracts. Bybit uses various security features such as cold storage, multi-key signature wallets, two-factor authentication, etc.
How Does Bybit Work?
Bybit does not have any KYC requirements, so you only need a phone number or email address to open an account. You can deposit cryptocurrencies or use a third party app to buy Bitcoin with fiat (traditional) money.
It offers margin and futures trading at up to 100x leverage. Bybit users can get 100x leverage on Bitcoin and 50x leverage on other currencies. Customers can also take out short-term insurance against losses. For advanced traders, both the website and mobile cryptocurrency app are packed with useful features.
You can just exchange one cryptocurrency for another. But if that’s all you want to do, Bybit is probably not the best choice — it isn’t set up for spot trading.
If you’ve never used leverage before, you’re essentially borrowing money to amplify your potential returns. It’s also called buying on margin. Regulators don’t allow retail investors to buy on margin because you may also amplify your losses and can easily be left with nothing.
You can choose to go long (bet that the currency will gain value) or short (bet that the currency will lose value). Here are the three main types of order you can make:
- Limit: An order to buy or sell at a price you set.
- Market: An order that’s filled straight away from the order book. You’ll pay a taker fee and have less control over the price you pay.
- Conditional: This order is activated when your trigger price is reached. For example, you might set a “take profit order” to take profits once you’ve made a 50% profit on your investment.
Can I Use ByBit in The US
Under normal circumstances, citizens of the US can’t use Bybit. The decision to lock American traders out of Bybit was made by the platform itself. They did this because of the lack of clarity regarding the US crypto regulations. Rather than getting sued by the US regulators like the SEC, Bybit opted to stay away from the United States market altogether.
Bybit is a top coveted exchange that, according to their terms and conditions, block U.S. traders. And don’t forget, Bybit offers derivatives, including options and futures trading, which gives users added trading opportunities. No wonder that being unable to use Bybit is a bummer for any US crypto trader.
To make sure that Americans can’t use Bybit, the platform is constantly monitoring user IP, banning any that originate in the US. This is an ol’ reliable type of geo-blocking – and the one that is quite easy to bypass using a VPN, such as VPN Unlimited.
Just connect to a VPN server located outside the US and you’ll get your real IP address masked behind that of the server. And don’t forget to use VPN Unlimited every time you use Bybit in the United States!
Why Can’t I Use Bybit in The US?
Your crypto trading options are drastically limited if you’re a US citizen. And while some amount of regulation is important and useful, certain laws can certainly be too much. For instance, Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) regulations ensure the legal use of money, including crypto assets like bitcoin (BTC). Given the amount of nefarious activity and scams within trading, the need for national protection and regulation is understandable.
However, current crypto regulations go overboard in more than a few places. Traders are significantly limited in the decisions they can make and the risks they are willing to take. Another problem is the non-transparency of the laws and restrictions – for instance, you find out that you can’t use Bybit in the US and don’t even know why that is.
As we have mentioned before, the most likely reason for being unable to use Bybit in the US is difficulties in regulation. However, it can be difficult to know for sure unless there’s an official statement by the platform, like the one they did in regards to suspending services to UK users.
In it, they cite the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) ban of crypto derivatives, as the reason for ceasing to provide services to UK customers. Besides the US and UK, other countries where Bybit is unavailable include China, Iran, North Korea, etc.
How Can I Access Bybit in The US?
The ban on Americans is enforced by an IP address geo-ban. That is, any American IP address is automatically blocked from using the exchange. Some enterprising users have figured out that’s it’s possible to circumnavigate this ban by using a VPN. While this is possible it’s also risky.
Should Bybit discover that an account is American and accessing the exchange through a VPN, they may freeze the account and the trader may not be able to retrieve their funds.
With a VPN, you can connect to a server where Bybit is available and access the cryptocurrency exchange instantly. Moreover, a VPN ensures your crypto activities are kept private and safe from third parties such as the government, ISPs, and cybercriminals.
What Are The Pros And Cons of Bybit?
If you are thinking of using Bybit wherever you are, below are some of the pros and cons you need to keep in mind about the platform. Let’s take a look at them.
Pros
- No KYC makes registration a breeze, it’s very easy to start trading on Bybit.
- Unlike some other cryptocurrency exchanges Bybit has a mobile app, making it easy to trade when away from the computer.
- Bybit is one of only a handful of exchanges that offers perpetual swap futures for coins like XRP and EOS.
- On Bybit it’s possible to trade with extremely high leverage, especially on Bitcoin products.
- Low trading fees, including a rebate for the market maker.
- The Bybit insurance fund guarantees that losses will not have to be socialized throughout the Bybit ecosystem.
- Multiple order types makes Bybit suitable for advanced traders and investors.
Cons
- It’s only possible to trade four coins on Bybit and the exchange has not announced their intention to support any more.
- Bybit is blocked to US citizens.
- It’s difficult to verify that Bybit’s volume statistics are actually accurate so it’s hard to know for sure how much trading is actually happening on the platform.
- Bybit does not support fiat purchases of cryptocurrency.
Is Bybit Legal to Trade With?
Since many cryptocurrency traders have never heard of Bybit it’s normal to ask is Bybit safe?
The answer is yes, Bybit is very legit. They have never been hacked and Bybit takes a number of precautions to ensure optimal trading security on their platform.
For example, they have a policy that mandates that cryptocurrency can only be withdrawn three times per day. That prevents a hacker from gaining access to an account and instantly draining it.
By only allowing withdrawals a few times per day it gives a person with a compromised account time to lock it so that no withdrawals can be made. Bitmex has a similar feature, however, they only allow withdrawals once per day.
Bybit is also very careful with how they store their cryptocurrency. For instance, when users deposit funds on Bybit the crypto is sent directly to a cold storage wallet. The advantage of a cold storage wallet is that it’s exponentially more difficult to hack than a “hot wallet.” Most of the time when funds are stolen from an exchange, they are stolen from the exchange’s hot wallet.
What Cryptocurrencies Can I Trade on Bybit?
Bybit supports the most popular cryptos by market cap together with a number of smaller yet popular cryptos.
These include Aave (“AAVE”), Bitcoin (“BTC”), Bitcoin Cash (“BCH”), Cardano’s ADA (“ADA”), Chainlink (“LINK”), Dogecoin (“DOGE”), EOS (“EOS”), Ethereum (“ETH”), Ethereum Classic (“ETC”), Filecoin (“FIL”), Litecoin (“LTC”), NEM (“XEM”), Polkadot (“DOT”), Polygon (“MATIC”), Ripple’s XRP (“XRP”), Solana (“SOL”), SushiSwap (“SUSHI”), Tezos (“XTZ”), and Uniswap (“UNI”).
Bybit users may either transfer already held Bybit supported cryptos to their Bybit wallets or purchase crypto on the Bybit platform.
Once funded, users may then trade Bybit supported cryptos derivatives contracts. Traders may either go long or short by trading inverse perpetual, USDT perpetual, or inverse futures contracts.
Supported cryptos vary depending upon the derivatives product and can be summarised as follows:
- Inverse Perpetual: BTCUSD; ETHUSD; EOSUSD, and XRPUSD.
- USDT Perpetual: All supported cryptos/USD pairings.
- Inverse Futures: BTCUSD and ETHUSD.
Traders may also trade spot. Pairings currently available include BTCUSDT, EOSUSDT, ETHUSDT, and XRPUSDT.
Can I Use Bybit in the US with a VPN?
Throughout this article, we have mentioned that the United States is on the list of Bybit banned countries. Technically, you can use Bybit in the US with a VPN, as the KYC requirement only applies to withdrawals past 2 BTC per day. However, Bybit may choose to send you a KYC request at any time, even if you keep your trading to a minimum.
But let’s say you’ve already completed the KYC process in a non-restricted country. You’re traveling for business or you’re on holiday in the US and want to check up on your investments or do some day-trading. If that’s the case, then we recommend waiting until you return home to do so.
VPNs can help protect your transactions on Bybit by encrypting your network traffic. Basically, they use complex algorithms to ensure nobody can see what you do online – whether it’s hackers, your ISP, or even government surveillance. Considering hackers constantly lurk on public Wi-Fi hotspots, VPNs are an essential tool to protect your data on the go.
Moreover, VPNs can also help you get around firewall restrictions at school, work, hotels, airports, and other places that might block Bybit and similar “non-essential” websites. On top of that, you can unblock geo-restricted crypto exchanges, although with a few caveats.
What Are Some Features of The Bybit Platform?
Spot: Offers users the ability to trade crypto/USDT parings. Order types available include Limit, Market, and Conditional.
Inverse Perpetual: Supports the trading of crypto either long or short via the derivatives trading platform. Traders can trade with up to 100x leverage with BTC. As a perpetual product, there are no expiry dates. The inverse component requires traders to place the underlying crypto as margin.
USDT Perpetual: Supports the trading of crypto/USDT pairings with gearing. As a perpetual product offering, there are no expiration dates. Traders may trade with a maximum leverage of 50x.
Inverse Futures: Supports the trading of crypto/USD pairings with gearing. The futures products are not perpetual and, therefore, have expiration dates. Currently, Bybit offers BTCUSD and ETHUSD pairings. Maximum gearing is set at 50x.
Credit / debit card purchases: Users may also purchase crypto by credit / debit card via the “Buy Crypto” page and have purchased crypto deposited to a specified wallet address.
Tracking Options
Orders: Traders may view a detailed breakdown of order Histories via the “Order” page located under the user account dropdown menu.
Positions: Additionally, traders may view their respective positions across the different products on each individual trading interface.
Balances: Users may view their respective wallet balances on the “Assets” page. Traders may view individual wallet balances for spot and derivatives accounts. Additionally, users are provided with total equity, P&L, and available balance.
Earning Options
Referral Programs: Bybit rewards users and their respective referees with $20 bonuses in USDT. Referees need to meet the minimum trading volume of $1,000 for USDT Perpetual and Inverse Contracts to qualify. Bybit also offers additional earnings as new milestones are hit.
Communication
SUPPORT: Users are able to contact customer support 24/7, with the Bybit community catering for 13 languages. In order to contact customer support, simply click the “Support” icon located at the bottom right-hand-side of the Bybit page. Here, users may search a comprehensive help section or speak to customer support via “Live Chat”.
Social Network Platforms: Bybit has a presence on YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
Bottomline
If you are an American citizen or you are currently in the U.S you will not be able to access Bybit due to the lack of regulatory clarity within the country and the fear of being sued by the SEC, one of the American regulatory.
The ban of Bybit in the country is forced by an IP address geo ban. Any American IP address is automatically blocked from accessing the cryptocurrency exchange platform.
However, if you still want to access the Bybit platform you do that using VPN to change your location if Bybit discovered an American account is trying to access the exchange platform through VPN your account might get blocked and you won’t be able to access hour funds.
