Investing.com - Bybit has announced that it will offer direct trading of a selection of top global stocks with stablecoin Tether, as the crypto exchange targets "fluid" activity between digital and traditional markets.
In a statement on Monday, the group said the service, which will be available as part of its Gold & Forex product suite, will unlock direct trading of large global equities, such as Facebook-owner Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), iPhone-maker Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), electric car manufacturer Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), artificial intelligence chip giant Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and e-commerce titan Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
"Users can now tap into traditional markets like stocks, gold, oil, indices, and forex, without fiat onboarding or leaving the crypto ecosystem," Bybit said.
The company added that the launch allows it to "unify crypto, stocks, and traditional assets under one roof" and enables "seamless trading" across asset classes from a single account.
Stablecoins are designed to be dollar-pegged and maintain a constant value, with Tether saying it holds dollars reserves to cover every token created. Tether has issued over $140 billion worth of the stablecoin, according to Reuters.
Traders widely use stablecoins to move funds between different cryptocurrencies or transfer them into regular cash.
All Bybit users will receive a 50% discount on fees for stock trades made through Gold & Forex from June 2 to June 15, the firm said.
Catering to more than 70 million users across 160 countries and regions, Bybit was initially focused on crypto derivatives, but later expanded into spot trading. The exchange, which features access to various cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and ether, said its 24-hour trading volume recently reached $40.11 billion.
Bybit was in the spotlight in February following a massive crypto heist worth around $1.5 billion. CEO Ben Zhou said at the time that the crypto was stolen from a so-called "cold wallet", or a digital wallet for ether tokens that is typically stored offline and said to be more secure.
All client funds were safe and operations were continuing as usual without any disruption, Bybit later said. Zhou noted that Bybit was also solvent and can cover any losses from the heist.