- Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said the next phase of finance will be shaped by AI, tokenization and regulatory clarity rather than price speculation.
- At Paris Blockchain Week 2026, he argued that financial platforms may eventually become almost invisible as intelligence and trust move into the background.
Ben Zhou did not spend much time talking about token prices in Paris. That, in itself, was a signal.
Speaking at Paris Blockchain Week 2026, the Bybit co-founder and chief executive used a fireside chat to sketch out a broader vision of where the industry may be heading next.
He argued that crypto’s future will not be defined by trading cycles alone, but by a deeper rebuild of financial infrastructure around artificial intelligence, programmable assets and clearer regulation.
Ben Zhou says finance may stop looking like a platform at all
One of Zhou’s more interesting points was about interface. In his view, users may not interact with financial platforms directly for much longer. Instead, they may rely on AI agents that can interpret data, execute strategies and manage financial tasks in real time.
Bybit, he said, has already introduced AI agent accounts that let clients create sub-accounts for AI systems to access market data, interact with markets and execute strategies. Zhou described agentic payments as an emerging theme, suggesting the industry is still only at the beginning of that shift.
That is a bigger claim than it first sounds. If financial interaction increasingly moves from manual clicks to delegated software, then the visible platform matters less. The intelligence behind it matters more.
Trust and regulation are becoming the actual product
Zhou also argued that the more meaningful transformation in finance is happening quietly. Traditional institutions, he said, are not entering blockchain through speculation. They are integrating it as infrastructure, especially through stablecoins and more efficient settlement systems.
In that framing, crypto is no longer an alternative to finance so much as a layer being folded into it.
He tied that transition directly to regulation. Jurisdictions such as the UAE, he said, are helping create structured pathways for innovation, while Europe, the US and the UK are gradually providing more clarity. That matters because institutions tend to follow rules before they follow narratives.
Zhou’s closing point was the most revealing. The goal, he said, is not to replace the existing financial system, but to make it more accessible, more efficient and almost invisible in daily life. In that version of the future, users do not think about wallets, blockchains or platforms. The system simply works.
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