Bybit's India Push: P2P Rewards Clash with Frozen Fund Complaints

Bybit, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has launched a peer-to-peer (P2P) trading AMA (Ask Me Anything) session in India, offering rewards to participants as part of its expanding local market strategy. The initiative, announced on October 28, 2025, aims to engage Indian traders while promoting the platform's broader TradFi (traditional finance) services, which include access to gold, forex, indices, and U.S. stock CFDs, according to a CoinMarketCap article. The event aligns with Bybit's recent push to bridge crypto and conventional finance, leveraging its MetaTrader 5 (MT5)-powered platform to attract both retail and institutional users, according to a PR Newswire release.

The P2P trading AMA is part of Bybit's ongoing efforts to enhance user interaction and reward engagement. While specific details about the rewards structure were not outlined in the announcement, the move follows the exchange's recent introduction of "Protection Vouchers" for its Copy Trading TradFi service. These vouchers offer up to 100 USDT in bonus protection for new users and 50 USDT for existing users if their first copy trade results in a loss, as described in the PR Newswire release. The initiative underscores Bybit's focus on risk management tools, particularly as global markets remain volatile.

Bybit's expansion in India also includes a strategic partnership with Thredd, a payments technology firm, to scale its multi-currency crypto-linked debit card program. The collaboration enables the Bybit Card, which allows users to spend crypto holdings as fiat in real-time via virtual and physical Visa and Mastercard cards, according to a Morningstar report. However, the platform has faced criticism from users reporting frozen funds and account restrictions for unspecified compliance reasons. Multiple Reddit threads from 2024 to 2025 detailed cases of inaccessible deposits ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of euros, with some users alleging inadequate support from Bybit's customer service, as reported by Yahoo Finance.

The AMA event comes amid a broader shift in India's economic landscape, where electronics exports are challenging the dominance of petroleum products. In FY25, electronics exports surged 63% to $38.5 billion, narrowing the gap with petroleum exports, which fell 16.4% to $30.6 billion, according to an Economic Times article. While Bybit's focus remains on crypto and TradFi, its activities in India reflect the country's evolving financial and industrial priorities.

Bybit's recent regulatory achievements, including UAE approval from the Securities and Commodities Authority in October 2025, further solidify its global ambitions, according to the Morningstar report. However, the platform's user experience in India remains a mixed bag, with reports of frozen funds highlighting the challenges of balancing compliance and user trust, as reported by Yahoo Finance.