Bybit's record-breaking trading competition returns with new Global Assets and AI arenas, Early Bird squad rewards, and a five-week schedule running to December 2, 2026
DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Bybit, the New Financial Platform trusted by more than 80 million users worldwide, today opened registration for the World Series of Trading (WSOT) 2026, its flagship global trading competition. From 10AM UTC today, eligible traders worldwide can register, create or join a squad, and start the Preheat Quest, with a prize pool of up to 10 million USDT on offer until December 2, 2026 at 10AM UTC.
Under this year's theme, The World Trades Here, WSOT grows from a crypto competition into a multi-asset trading tournament. Two new arenas sit alongside the Squad and Individual Showdowns: Global Assets, where traders compete on stocks, gold, oil, and indices, and the AI P&L Showdown, where strategies run through Bybit AI.
WSOT 2026 builds on a record 2025 edition, which drew 520,451 participants across the globe, formed 1,474 squads, and earned a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title with 71,765 participants joining within 24 hours.
How to join today
- Register on the WSOT 2026 page at bybit.com/wsot2026. There is no minimum equity to register.
- Lead or join a squad. Squad leaders apply on the WSOT page and can start recruiting once approved. Traders join through a squad link, by searching a squad name, or from recommended squads. Traders can also compete solo only.
- Start the Preheat Quest. Complete trading tasks across five arenas to unlock rewards from day one.
- Get activated for the leaderboards. Hold at least 100 USDT in your Unified Trading Account for five minutes to rank on the P&L and P&L% leaderboards.
What's new in WSOT 2026
WSOT 2026 reflects Bybit's shift into a global multi-asset platform. Crypto, stocks, and commodities now share one account and one competition, with AI built into the experience from registration to the final leaderboard.
Global Assets Showdown. Two volume leaderboards bring traditional markets into WSOT. The Spot leaderboard covers crypto and stock spot trading, where available. The TradFi Perps leaderboard covers perpetual contracts on stocks, gold, oil, and indices.
AI Showdown. A new leaderboard ranks traders using a Bybit AI subaccount or a general AI subaccount by P&L. Bybit AI also sits on the WSOT page as a competition assistant. It explains the rules, tasks, and tracks squad and individual rankings in real time.
Preheat Quest. Running for the full campaign, the Preheat Quest spans five arenas: New & Invite, Spot, Derivatives, TradFi, and Bybit AI. Each completed task lights up an arena and unlocks rewards.
Squads built to grow. Squad members, not only leaders, now earn rewards for inviting traders into their squad. The first 100 qualified squads earn their leader 100 USDT each, and the first 20 TradFi squad leaders earn 500 USDT each. The first 200 qualified squad leaders earn 50 USDT each.
Key dates by Stage
| Stage | Dates & Times (2026, UTC) |
| Preheat Quest: Registration | Oct 29, 10AM - Dec 2, 10AM |
| Squad Showdown: Squad Creation | Oct 29, 10 AM - Nov 11, 10AM |
| Squad Showdown: Main Competition | Nov 13, 10 AM - Dec 2, 10AM |
| Individual Showdown | Nov 13, 10 AM - Dec 2, 10AM |
| Global Assets: Spot Competition | Nov 5, 10 AM - Nov 26, 10AM |
| Global Assets: TradFi Perps | Nov 19, 10 AM - Dec 2, 10AM |
| AI Showdown | Nov 13, 10 AM - Dec 2, 10AM |
Stage
Dates & Times (2026, UTC)
Preheat Quest: Registration
Oct 29, 10AM - Dec 2, 10AM
Squad Showdown: Squad Creation
Oct 29, 10 AM - Nov 11, 10AM
Squad Showdown: Main Competition
Nov 13, 10 AM - Dec 2, 10AM
Individual Showdown
Nov 13, 10 AM - Dec 2, 10AM
Global Assets: Spot Competition
Nov 5, 10 AM - Nov 26, 10AM
Global Assets: TradFi Perps
Nov 19, 10 AM - Dec 2, 10AM
AI Showdown
Nov 13, 10 AM - Dec 2, 10AM
Prize pools unlock as total trading volume across participants grows. In the Squad Showdown, the leader takes 20% of each squad's reward, the top 10 members share 20%, and all eligible members share 60%. The Individual Showdown ranks traders within three weight classes: Lightweight, Middleweight, and Heavyweight.
How to take part
There is no minimum equity to register. To rank on the P&L and P&L% leaderboards, traders hold at least 100 USDT in their Unified Trading Account for five minutes. Each trader can compete with one main account and up to six subaccounts, including AI subaccounts. Traders can join a squad and compete solo at the same time, or compete solo only.
Pro users, market makers, and institutional users are not eligible. WSOT 2026 is not open to residents of the European Economic Area or other restricted regions.
For the full rules and Terms and Conditions, visit https://www.bybit.com/wsot2026.
Disclaimer: Trading involves risk, including the loss of all funds invested. Virtual assets may lose their value in full or in part, are subject to extreme volatility, and do not benefit from any form of financial protection. Leveraged products carry a high level of risk. Eligibility and geographic restrictions apply. See the Competition Terms. Product availability may vary by region. Some products and services may not be available to all users. This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to access or use any product or service.
#Bybit / #NewFinancialPlatform / #WSOT
About Bybit
Bybit is The New Financial Platform.
We believe every person should have access to every financial opportunity on earth. That's why we're building the first intelligent platform that connects anyone, anywhere to the world's finance.
Trusted by more than 80 million users worldwide, Bybit brings together investing, trading, payments, and wealth-building in a single secure and intelligent ecosystem. Through the combination of AI-powered technology, deep global liquidity, robust security, and transparent operations, Bybit makes global finance more accessible, efficient, and empowering for everyone.
Built for everyone. Powered by intelligence. Open to the world.
Learn more at Bybit.com.
For more details about Bybit, please visit Bybit Press
For media inquiries, please contact: media@bybit.com
For updates, please follow: Bybit's Communities and Social Media
Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Reddit | Telegram | TikTok | X | Youtube
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
WSOT 2026 Is Live: Registration Opens for Bybit's World Series of Trading, With a Prize Pool of Up to 10 Million USDT Across Crypto, Stocks, and AI
Led by Blockchain Capital, the funding will accelerate the expansion of PhotonPay's stablecoin-centric Financial OS, connecting stablecoin liquidity with global fiat networks to unlock digital assets for everyday corporate operations and cross-border settlement.
HONG KONG, Oct. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- PhotonPay today announced the closing of a $40 million Series C funding round led by Blockchain Capital, with participation from new investor SBI Group and follow-on investments from existing investors IDG Capital, GL Ventures, and Lightspeed Faction. Blacksheep Technology acted as exclusive financial advisor to PhotonPay on the transaction.
The new capital will support the expansion of PhotonPay's stablecoin-centric Financial Operating System (Financial OS), with investment focused on enhancing multi-asset wallet capabilities, expanding global card issuing, strengthening local clearing infrastructure in key markets, and developing an agent-ready financial execution layer.
As of August 2026, PhotonPay's annualized transaction volume reached US$65 billion. The company has secured 34 payment and financial licenses and regulatory authorizations across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and serves over 200,000 business customers across more than 200 countries and territories.
As stablecoins move beyond crypto-native use cases into corporate treasury, settlement and commercial spending, PhotonPay sees the next phase of global finance not as a choice between stablecoins and fiat currencies, but as the convergence of both. Its Financial OS connects on-chain liquidity with the banking, clearing and card networks businesses rely on for everyday operations.
"Moving money across borders in seconds means little if it still takes days to put that capital to work," said Lewison Chen, Founder and CEO of PhotonPay. "Stablecoins are accelerating global money movement, while local clearing and global card issuing connect that liquidity to local settlement and everyday business spending. Our Financial OS brings these capabilities together, making the underlying infrastructure far less visible to businesses, even as it becomes more essential than ever."
"At the same time, business software is becoming increasingly autonomous," Chen added. "AI is shifting financial workflows from people manually operating fragmented tools toward systems that understand business intent and coordinate execution across assets, accounts and financial rails. That creates the foundation for agentic commerce. Stablecoins change how money moves. AI changes how it gets put to work. But commerce is still what money is for."
Moving Money Across Assets and Markets
PhotonPay's Financial OS brings together multi-asset wallets, global money movement, foreign exchange, local clearing, and global card issuing through an integrated API-first architecture. This unified system gives businesses access to the financial capabilities they need to manage and deploy funds across markets.
Stablecoins sit at the core of this architecture. PhotonPay's multi-asset wallet connects stablecoin liquidity with fiat balances, integrating asset conversion, foreign exchange, and local clearing into a single connected workflow. This enables businesses to move funds across supported on-chain and traditional financial networks, turning digital asset liquidity into purchasing power for local payments and everyday corporate spending.
Supporting this dual-rail infrastructure is PhotonPay's established global financial network. Businesses can open local collection accounts in 17 key markets and receive funds in more than 60 currencies. On the payout side, the network supports over 100 payment routes across local clearing systems, bank transfers, and digital wallets, including payouts to 74 major local e-wallets. Approximately 97% of payout transactions reach recipients within hours or on the same day, with 68% arriving in real time.
Global card issuing extends these capabilities into programmable business spending. Through PhotonPay's APIs, businesses and platforms can issue virtual and physical cards, configure granular spending controls, and embed card payments directly into their software and automated workflows. Over the past 12 months, PhotonPay issued 4.4 million cards, up 275% YoY.
Beyond its first-party payment solutions, PhotonPay makes its infrastructure available through embedded finance, enabling technology platforms to natively integrate global accounts, payments, and card issuing into their own products. The company now serves more than 100 enterprise and platform partners, extending the reach of its Financial OS into industry-specific workflows.
From Financial Intent to Agentic Commerce
As AI agents assume active operational roles, financial infrastructure must evolve beyond API access to enable programmable, policy-governed execution. It requires systems capable of translating high-level instructions into coordinated financial actions, with deterministic controls governing how those actions are executed.
In May 2026, PhotonPay and Mastercard completed a live agentic payment demonstration using a tokenized PhotonPay card, validating AI-initiated transactions across existing global card networks.
Building on this milestone, PhotonPay is developing standardized financial interfaces designed for developers and AI agents. With planned support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), PhotonPay aims to make account information, balances, card functions, and payments accessible as composable financial primitives, allowing AI agents to securely retrieve context and initiate financial workflows within defined authorization boundaries.
To govern this agent-ready layer, PhotonPay is developing a policy-based execution framework designed to enforce programmable authorization rules, spending limits, and transaction-level controls. The framework is intended to enable AI agents to coordinate financial tasks across supported accounts and assets, while ensuring that execution remains subject to explicit, enforceable policies set by businesses.
PhotonPay is also advancing its AI-assisted risk review capabilities, designed to identify complex cases for human assessment. Together, these initiatives reflect a foundational principle of autonomous finance: AI may interpret intent and coordinate tasks, but financial execution must remain governed by verifiable authorization, deterministic controls, and auditable records.
"Connecting financial networks is only the beginning. The real breakthrough is abstracting that complexity behind a unified, programmable financial layer, so businesses and AI agents can move from intent to execution within clearly defined boundaries," said Chen.
Simple on the Surface, Deep by Design
The promise of a Financial OS is simplicity: enabling businesses to manage assets, route money, and execute payments through a unified financial operating layer. Yet delivering that simplicity requires deep financial infrastructure beneath the surface.
While stablecoins accelerate borderless value transfer, turning that liquidity into local settlement, supplier payments, and corporate spending still depends on established banking relationships, domestic clearing rails, foreign exchange infrastructure, and global card networks. Each market brings its own regulatory and operational requirements.
For PhotonPay, building a Financial OS means abstracting these fragmented global networks into a programmable, interconnected financial system. The objective is not to eliminate financial complexity, but to manage it within the underlying infrastructure, so businesses can operate without having to navigate these systems themselves.
"AI can simplify how businesses interact with financial services, but it cannot replace the infrastructure required to deliver them," said JP Pi, Chief Compliance Officer at PhotonPay. "Establishing local financial capabilities takes years of investment, institutional partnerships, and regulatory engagement. Software or AI models alone cannot replicate that depth. The simplicity businesses experience is the result of that heavy lifting, not a substitute for it."
PhotonPay has engineered a financial foundation spanning both stablecoin and fiat rails, connecting multi-asset conversion with local clearing networks. Institutional partnerships with J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered, and DBS, alongside connections to domestic payment systems such as Brazil's Pix and Mexico's SPEI, form the backbone of this network.
The new capital will enable PhotonPay to strengthen its local clearing and compliance infrastructure in existing markets while expanding into new jurisdictions, scaling the reach of its Financial OS across corporate spending, embedded finance, and agentic commerce.
"Businesses want one provider that can handle their payments across currencies and markets, whether they're using bank transfers, stablecoins or cards. Lewison and his team have spent a decade building the banking relationships, licenses and local payment infrastructure to deliver that. We believe PhotonPay's ability to bring these capabilities together gives it a strong advantage as businesses adopt stablecoins for everyday payments." - BCAP，Yuanhan Li，Partner
"As stablecoins become increasingly integrated into global payment systems, bridging digital assets with traditional financial infrastructure will be essential to unlocking their real-world potential. PhotonPay's established global payment network and its vision for a stablecoin-centric Financial OS align closely with SBI Group's strategy to advance digital financial infrastructure and expand the practical adoption of digital assets. We look forward to supporting PhotonPay's continued growth and exploring opportunities for strategic collaboration across the SBI Group ecosystem." - Eiichiro So, CEO & Managing Director of SBI Ven Capital
About PhotonPay
Founded in Hong Kong in 2015, PhotonPay is a global fintech company building a next-generation, stablecoin-centric Financial Operating System (Financial OS). Its API-first architecture brings together multi-asset wallets supporting stablecoins and fiat currencies, global money movement, foreign exchange, global card issuing, embedded finance, and local clearing infrastructure, connecting digital and traditional financial rails within an integrated financial system.
PhotonPay operates 16 offices worldwide, employs nearly 600 people, and holds 34 payment and financial licenses and regulatory authorizations across the Americas, Europe and Asia. The company serves businesses across more than 200 countries and territories.
For more information, visit www.photonpay.com.
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
PhotonPay Raises $40M Series C to Scale Its Stablecoin-Centric Financial OS
