Bybit led an $8 million Series A in Hata, a dual‑licensed digital asset exchange in Malaysia, with participation from global family offices. The investment follows Bybit’s earlier backing of Hata’s $4.2 million seed round. Hata says the funding will be used to boost liquidity, grow its user base and develop additional digital asset products.
Hata holds licenses from the Securities Commission Malaysia and the Labuan Financial Services Authority to provide trading and custody services in Malaysia. Since launching in 2023, the exchange reports more than 209,000 registered users and 1.04 billion Malaysian ringgits (about $225 million) in transaction volume in 2025.
Ben Zhou, Bybit co‑founder and CEO, called Malaysia “strategically important,” citing its digitally engaged population and long‑term potential for digital asset adoption. Bybit is the world’s fifth‑largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, per CoinMarket data.
Beyond Southeast Asia, Bybit has been expanding in the Middle East. In March the exchange appointed Derek Dai as country manager for the MENA region to lead expansion and partnerships. Dai said the Middle East is an emerging crypto market and Bybit plans to broaden UAE dirham access and forge ties with banks and payment providers.
Malaysia is concurrently building out its digital asset regulatory framework. In June the country launched the Digital Asset Innovation Hub, a regulatory sandbox for testing use cases such as programmable payments, ringgit‑backed stablecoins and supply chain financing under central bank oversight. Under the sandbox, a telecom company linked to Crown Prince Ismail Ibrahim launched a ringgit‑backed stablecoin called RMJDT on the Zetrix blockchain.
In November, Bank Negara Malaysia released a three‑year roadmap to explore asset tokenization, outlining pilots for tokenized deposits, stablecoins and cross‑border settlement and establishing an industry working group co‑led with the Securities Commission Malaysia. More recently, the central bank said it is piloting three sandbox programs focused on ringgit‑backed stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits for cross‑border settlement, with participation from institutions including Standard Chartered, CIMB Group and Maybank.
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