ABFinance, a US-compliant cryptocurrency trading platform founded by former Bybit co-CEO Helen Liu, has suspended operations, according to an announcement circulating this week. The shutdown comes just months after the platform's launch, marking a rapid end for a venture that had positioned itself around full US regulatory compliance from day one.
Liu departed Bybit on April 30 after roughly five years at the exchange, where she rose from an early role in human resources to vice president of marketing, chief of staff, chief operating officer, and finally co-CEO in 2025. She announced ABFinance on X in March, describing it as a one-stop digital-finance platform designed to integrate deposits, yield products, trading and spending under a fully compliant US license rather than retrofitting compliance onto an existing offshore structure.
A Compliance-First Pitch That Didn't Last Long
ABFinance's positioning stood out at launch precisely because it inverted the typical crypto-exchange playbook: rather than building an offshore platform and negotiating individual state licenses later, Liu framed ABFinance as compliant from the outset, aimed at bridging fiat and crypto for US users specifically. That approach was meant to sidestep the kind of regulatory friction that has slowed or blocked other exchanges' US expansion plans, making the operational suspension after only a few months a notable reversal for a platform that had made regulatory-first design its core differentiator.
Little Detail on the Cause
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Neither Liu nor ABFinance has publicly detailed the reasons behind the suspension, leaving open whether the platform faced funding constraints, a specific compliance setback, or simply insufficient user adoption in a US market where established players already command most retail trading volume. The episode adds to a string of high-profile crypto ventures this year that have struggled to gain traction quickly even with strong founder pedigrees and stated regulatory advantages — a reminder that a compliant structure alone hasn't been sufficient to guarantee traction in a crowded exchange market.
Whether ABFinance resumes operations in a different form or winds down entirely remains unclear. For now, the suspension leaves Liu's post-Bybit venture as a cautionary data point for other executives eyeing similar compliance-first plays in the US market.
