Bybit closed out 2025 with a statement-making achievement: on December 22, the exchange claimed the top spot in 24-hour spot trading volume among centralized exchanges, processing over $9.2 billion in transactions. Bybit closed out 2025 with a statement-making achievement: on December 22, the exchange claimed the top spot in 24-hour spot trading volume among centralized exchanges, processing over $9.2 billion in transactions. The milestone, driven largely by explosive interest in the NIGHT/USDT trading pair, demonstrated the exchange's capacity to handle massive surges without disruption. I spoke with Emily Bao, Head of Spot at Bybit, about what it takes to build infrastructure capable of capturing such moments, the strategic decisions behind Bybit's liquidity positioning, and how the exchange plans to carry this momentum into 2026. Ishan Pandey: Hi Emily, welcome to our Behind the Startup series. Could you tell us about your journey in the crypto industry and what drew you to lead spot trading operations at Bybit? Ishan Pandey: Emily Bao: My work in crypto has always focused on how markets function across different conditions, and over time that led me into roles centered on trading products, liquidity structure, and market operations. Emily Bao: Bybit is well known for its derivatives roots, but like any mature centralized exchange, spot trading is foundational and taken very seriously. What stood out to me was how much emphasis the team places on execution quality, liquidity, and the overall trading experience on spot, not just on growth metrics. Alongside leading spot at Bybit, I also spend time on ecosystem work as a Mantle advisor and on on-chain initiatives like Byreal. Having exposure across centralized and on-chain environments reinforces the same lesson for me: strong spot foundations remain essential, even as trading environments and user behavior continue to evolve. Ishan Pandey: Bybit just achieved the number one position in 24-hour spot trading volume. Walk us through what that day looked like operationally. How does your team prepare for and respond to these high-intensity trading moments? Ishan Pandey: Emily Bao: The day itself was intense, but it wasn't unexpected. When we see activity building in certain markets, preparation starts early. Emily Bao: We've experienced periods of elevated trading activity before. For example, in August 2024, Bybit reported a record daily trading volume exceeding $107 billion across all product types, which reinforced the importance of being prepared for sudden shifts in market participation. What made the NIGHT/USDT moment different was not just the scale, but how early signals began to converge. We saw growing interest across community channels, early liquidity formation, and increasing trader attention before volumes fully accelerated. That allowed our teams across engineering, liquidity, risk, and operations to align early and ensure the market could scale smoothly as demand increased. This kind of preparation is less about reacting to a spike and more about recognizing when multiple indicators point in the same direction. During periods like this, our focus is on maintaining stable trading conditions and consistent execution from a user's perspective. These are baseline infrastructure expectations for mature centralized exchanges. Ultimately, the volume number is a result. The priority is making sure traders can continue to place and manage orders normally, even when activity concentrates into a short window. Ishan Pandey: The NIGHT/USDT pair drove significant activity, with Bybit commanding over 77% of the token's network-wide trading volume. What goes into the decision-making process for supporting emerging assets, and how do you identify which tokens will resonate with traders? Ishan Pandey: Emily Bao: With emerging assets, we look beyond short-term attention and try to evaluate a matrix of factors with the information we have at the time, such as liquidity behavior, trading demand, community sentiment, and whether there is sustained interest rather than purely reactive volume. Emily Bao: Like many skills in crypto, resources and data are no longer exclusive to professional traders and analysts. Bybit offers an AI-powered insights product, TradeGPT, that assists users in their research journey. It's free, and anyone can try it out to research their tokens of interest and dive into the driving factors of a token's performance. In the case of NIGHT/USDT, trading activity concentrated quickly, and traders gravitated toward venues where they could trade efficiently during peak demand. Our role is to make sure that we are ready to support the surges in demand when interest accelerates. Supporting an asset is not just about listing it, but about making sure the surrounding trading conditions meet trader expectations. Ishan Pandey: Processing billions in volume requires strong infrastructure. Can you share insight into how Bybit approaches system reliability and liquidity during demand spikes? Ishan Pandey: Emily Bao: At scale, the priority is consistency. We plan for periods of elevated activity and focus on maintaining predictable execution behavior when markets move quickly. This requires robust infrastructure, deep liquidity, for spot trading, a powerful matching engine that can handle the upper limits of TPS, and something people overlook: security guardrails. Emily Bao: On the liquidity side, we emphasize depth, diversification, and continuous monitoring of market conditions. The goal is not to optimize for calm markets, but to ensure that trading remains stable when participation increases rapidly. From a trader's point of view, the experience should remain familiar and smooth. An imperfect metaphor would be: when your Tesla speeds up, you should be able to experience the velocity without hearing the engine roar. Ishan Pandey: Bybit positions itself as a "Traders' House", bringing together spot, derivatives, and other products. How does this integrated approach shape Bybit's spot offering? Ishan Pandey: Emily Bao: Most active traders operate across products rather than within a single category. When traders have access to spot, derivatives, and at Bybit, TradFi and earn products and even bespoke wealth management solutions, they can manage exposure and capital more efficiently without unnecessary friction. Emily Bao: This integration also benefits spot markets directly. Cross-product activity contributes to healthier liquidity and more consistent price formation. Instead of treating products as isolated verticals, we focus on how they work together to support real trading strategies. Ishan Pandey: Liquidity is often described as the main competitive battleground for exchanges. What has Bybit done to support liquidity quality, especially during volatile conditions? Ishan Pandey: Emily Bao: Liquidity is built over time. It depends on both retail and institutional participation, incentive structures that encourage consistency, and systems that maximize reliability and security. In addition, in order to build meaningful relationships with institutional investors, exchanges like Bybit have to introduce the necessary guardrails and achieve certain levels of compliance and regulatory capacities. Emily Bao: We also think carefully about how assets are used within the platform. Expanding trading pairs, supporting fee utility, and aligning incentives all contribute to healthier market behavior. During volatile periods, the focus is on keeping trading conditions stable so that both traders and liquidity providers can operate with confidence. Ishan Pandey: Looking ahead to 2026, what developments can traders expect from Bybit Spot? Ishan Pandey: Emily Bao: Our focus is on continuing to strengthen the core spot experience. That includes improving execution consistency, expanding high-quality markets, and refining tools that active traders rely on. Emily Bao: We will also continue to explore ways to connect spot trading with on-chain opportunities in a way that feels practical and familiar to users. The direction is straightforward: build reliable infrastructure, support real trading needs, and make sure spot markets remain a strong foundation as the broader ecosystem evolves. This interview is part of HackerNoon's Behind the Startup series, exploring the stories and insights of leaders building the future of technology. This interview is part of HackerNoon's Behind the Startup series, exploring the stories and insights of leaders building the future of technology.

This story contains new, firsthand information uncovered by the writer.

The writer was physically present in relevant location(s) to this story. The location is also a prevalent aspect of this story be it news or otherwise.

Hot off the press! This story contains factual information about a recent event.

Huobi Token

Alongside

Inside Bybit's Trading Infrastructure: How to Handle Billions in Volume During Market Spikes

About Author

Comments

TOPICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN

Related Stories

$2M Backing and a Vision: How GAM3S.GG is Reshaping Web3 Gaming

(1/100) Crypto Countdown: Golem

A Research Report on the Trader $JOE DeFi Platform

07/03/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

05/02/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

01/06/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

$2M Backing and a Vision: How GAM3S.GG is Reshaping Web3 Gaming

(1/100) Crypto Countdown: Golem

A Research Report on the Trader $JOE DeFi Platform

07/03/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

05/02/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

01/06/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

Light-Mode

Classic

Newspaper

Minty

Dark-Mode

Neon Noir

Minty

HN StartUps