Economic development officials with ties to the British government invited Bybit executives to London this week in what appears to be an attempt to emulate the momentum of Dubai, where the cryptocurrency exchange is based, and the rest of the United Arab Emirates.
CEO Ben Zhou said the message from the UK is “that they are very keen to invite large companies to establish bases and create jobs”, and to discuss upcoming pro-crypto regulations.
Bybit was founded by Zhou in 2018 and, four years later, moved its headquarters to Dubai from his native Singapore. It is ranked the second largest crypto exchange by CoinGecko, behind Binance, which was established in the United Arab Emirates in 2025.
The arrival of crypto giants like Bybit and Binance has acted as a magnet to attract smaller crypto companies to the region, something the UK would like to emulate, Zhou said.
“One interesting thing is that there hasn’t been any momentum in the UK,” Zhou said in an interview at Paris Blockchain Week. “If you look at the UAE, where there are big exchanges like Bybit or Binance, once we announced our presence, smaller players followed, and that created this momentum.”
Zhou’s invitation includes meetings with the Financial Conduct Authority and representatives of the House of Lords, and coincides with UK Fintech Week and a Treasury plan to revamp payment systems with stablecoins and make tokenization mainstream.
“I have meetings with the FCA. I have meetings with the House of Lords just to discuss what you want to do with crypto,” Zhou said, without naming the British government department that issued the invitation.
“We were invited specifically by an economic development council who said, ‘We can have a direct line to the prime minister.’ There is an agenda to promote innovation, especially in crypto,” Zhou said.
Neither the Treasury nor Lucy Rigby, the economic secretary to the Treasury, responded to requests for comment. The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Technology also did not respond to requests for comment. The FCA had not responded at press time.
The timing of this invitation is interesting, as the UAE suffered direct attacks from Iran during the US-Israeli war that began on February 28, prompting tens of thousands of residents and tourists to leave the country. One in eight British residents have left, the Financial Times reported earlier this month.
The British government has noted “a flight of money and businesses to the United Arab Emirates. They want them back. This is precisely the right time,” Zhou said.
