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Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has announced its comeback to India after registering with authorities in the country.
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Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has registered with government authorities in India and restored all services to users in the country, according to a Feb. 25 announcement.
The registration comes after India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) fined Bybit 9.27 crore rupees ($1.06 million) on Jan. 31 for violating the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The cryptocurrency exchange had suspended services in the country weeks before the fine, citing compliance concerns with the Indian government.
The report detailing the violation and fine claimed that “Bybit kept expanding its services in the Indian market without securing mandatory registration with the FIU-IND. The persistent and continuous non-compliance caused FIU-IND to block their websites to stop operations under the Information Technology Act […].”
According to CoinMarketCap, Bybit is active in 1,174 markets, with over 60 million users worldwide.
Bybit recovers from $1.5-billion Lazarus Group hack
On Feb. 21, 2025, four days before restoring services back to users in India, Bybit suffered a hack from the North Korean-affiliated Lazarus Group that resulted in over $1.4 billion in Ether (ETH)-related tokens being stolen. It is the largest recorded crypto theft in history.
Analysts said that the hack exposes security flaws present in centralized exchanges, while crypto security experts say that the hack shows the use of “increasingly creative exploits” in the crypto industry.
Related: Bybit has ‘fully closed the ETH gap’ CEO says after $1.4B Lazarus hack
On Feb. 22, Cointelegraph reported that Bybit’s assets had dropped over $5.3 billion due to the hack and subsequent withdrawals. However, independent audits confirmed that the exchange still had more reserves than liabilities. That same day, Feb. 22, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou noted that withdrawals had returned “to a normal pace.”
In an announcement on Feb. 22, Zhou thanked the crypto community for its outpouring of support, writing: “Within 24 hours of the event, we were overwhelmed with support from some of the best people and organizations in the industry, and we do not take it for granted. We have shared in a dark moment of crypto history.”
Magazine: Lazarus Group’s favorite exploit revealed — Crypto hacks analysis
This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
