Bybit said its co-founder and chief executive, Ben Zhou, met with Irakli Kobakhidze in Tbilisi this week to discuss the next phase of the country’s digital asset ambitions and how responsible fintech innovation can be nurtured through close cooperation between government and industry. The meeting, attended by senior Georgian officials and Bybit’s local leadership, underscored the exchange’s push to root itself in Georgia while operating on a compliance-led model that, it says, benefits both consumers and the broader financial system.
Officials on both sides framed the talks as part policy dialogue, part partnership pitch. Prime Minister Kobakhidze welcomed the interest from international technology and financial platforms, saying such engagement reflects Georgia’s growing attractiveness for investment and its potential to become a regional hub for digital finance. The government highlighted recent economic momentum as context for that pitch, pointing to strong growth metrics recorded over the past several years.
Bybit used the meeting to reiterate a message it has been emphasizing since entering the Georgian market: embed deeply, comply transparently, and build payments and trading infrastructure that ordinary consumers can use day to day. Zhou reminded officials that Bybit’s local strategy has followed that playbook, moving from regulatory registration to product rollouts and partnerships with local banks and global stablecoin and payments players. “Georgia is becoming a model for how crypto companies can embed themselves into a country’s financial fabric,” Zhou said, describing a deliberate sequence of milestones the company has achieved since late 2024.
The Milestones are Concrete
Bybit was among the first major global exchanges to obtain a Virtual Asset Service Provider registration in Georgia in late 2024, a regulatory foothold that the company says helped it plan a localized platform and launch tailored services. The localized site giving Georgians access to Bybit’s global markets went live in mid-2025, and the company later secured a Payment Service Provider license that cleared the way for local fiat rails and card programmes. Most recently, Bybit rolled out the Bybit Card in Georgia in January 2026, a move Bybit portrays as bridging crypto assets and everyday spending for consumers and merchants.
Beyond product headlines, the exchange told officials it is pursuing deeper integration with the traditional banking system, including active discussions to partner with a leading Georgian bank to surface crypto trading services directly to bank customers. If realized, such a collaboration would be among the first examples in the region of a mainstream bank linking retail banking flows directly to a licensed crypto marketplace. Bybit framed these tie-ups as part of a broader commitment to financial inclusion, digital literacy, and payments modernization across Georgia.
Analysts and local observers said such meetings are predictable but important: they signal a two-way commitment. For the Georgian government, collaboration with established international platforms can accelerate the digitization of payments and financial services. For companies like Bybit, the country offers a regulatory sandbox with clear licensing routes and, increasingly, concrete business opportunities. Skeptics caution that rapid fintech expansion must be matched by supervision and consumer protections; supporters say clear licensing and public dialogue are the right first steps.
Bybit, founded in 2018 and serving tens of millions of users globally, presented the Tbilisi meeting as part of a long-term strategy to fuse TradFi rails and Web3 infrastructure while operating under strong local oversight. As regulators, banks and crypto firms continue to test ways of working together, Georgia appears intent on positioning itself as one of the early laboratories where that experiment plays out in public.
