Bybit has been named to CNBC's World's Top Fintech Companies 2026 list, placing the exchange in the Digital Assets category of a ranking produced in partnership with market research firm Statista. The annual list recognizes 500 leading fintech companies across eight industry segments, selected from a pool of roughly 3,500 companies evaluated through what CNBC and Statista describe as an aggregated scoring model weighing overall business performance alongside category-specific key performance indicators.
Bybit, which describes itself as the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, says it now serves more than 80 million users worldwide. The company has leaned on that scale as evidence of its shift from a pure crypto exchange toward a broader financial platform, pointing to expansions into tokenized assets such as xStocks and IPO Express, AI-powered trading tools, and Web3 services alongside its core trading business.
Part of a Broader Push for Legitimacy
The CNBC recognition follows Bybit's inclusion in the inaugural Fortune Crypto 100 list, where it was placed in the CeFi category — a group Fortune defines as crypto-first companies, including exchanges, lenders and custodians, that handle, hold or trade digital assets. Taken together, the two placements reflect a pattern common among major exchanges this year: pairing growth metrics with recognition from mainstream financial media as a way of signaling maturity to institutional users and regulators alike.
That positioning is reinforced by Bybit's regulatory footprint. The company holds a Virtual Asset Platform Operator license from the UAE Securities and Commodities Authority, as well as a Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation license from Austria's Financial Market Authority — credentials that exchanges increasingly cite as differentiators as global crypto regulation tightens.
A Fast-Growing Sector
The broader fintech industry that CNBC's list surveys had a strong 2025 by revenue. According to the data cited alongside the ranking, the global fintech sector generated approximately $650 billion in revenue in 2025, a 21% increase year-over-year — growth that spans traditional payments and lending firms as well as the digital-asset exchanges now competing for a slice of the same rankings. Bybit's appearance on the list alongside established fintech names suggests CNBC and Statista are treating crypto exchanges as a mainstream category within fintech rather than a separate, niche vertical.
