A Sept. 7 post on r/CryptoCurrency titled “Bybit Could Go Bankrupt This Year” argued that extended withdrawal restrictions can be an early warning sign of an exchange collapse. The post cited the author’s own unresolved case and several other users who claimed to have experienced lengthy delays.
The author said their withdrawals had been restricted for an extended period and identified the case with Bybit as 27409501. They also alleged that posts discussing withdrawal problems were being removed from Bybit’s community channels.
The post attracted more than 80 upvotes and generated a discussion in which other Reddit users shared their own experiences. One commenter claimed a friend had been unable to access six-figure funds for about three months before eventually recovering them after involving a Singapore-based lawyer. Another said they had waited four weeks for around $5,000 to be refunded following an anti-money-laundering issue.
Other participants pushed back against the bankruptcy theory. One commenter noted that Bybit remains one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, while another pointed out that the platform continued operating after suffering one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts ever recorded.
Those responses are important because the Reddit discussion contains no evidence connecting the reported withdrawal cases to a liquidity shortfall.
Bybit’s public record provides a materially different picture. In February 2025, hackers stole approximately $1.46 billion from one of its Ethereum cold wallets in an attack that Bybit attributed to the Lazarus Group. Despite the size of the loss, the exchange said it processed more than 350,000 withdrawal requests and resumed normal withdrawals within hours.
An independent proof-of-reserves review by blockchain security firm Hacken subsequently found that Bybit’s reserves exceeded customer liabilities across the assets covered by the audit. Bybit said the ETH reserve gap created by the exploit had been closed within 72 hours through bridge loans, deposits and OTC purchases.
The exchange continued its proof-of-reserves program afterward. Its 30th published PoR report, based on a Jan. 27, 2026 snapshot and independently verified by Hacken, reported reserve ratios of at least 100% for the major assets covered, including 105% for USDT, USDC and BTC.
That does not prove that every individual withdrawal complaint is unfounded. A user can have a legitimate account-specific compliance or AML problem even when an exchange remains solvent.
Indeed, Bybit’s own help center lists several reasons withdrawals can be unsuccessful, including locked deposits, withdrawal limits, 24-hour restrictions and temporary withdrawal suspensions. The page was updated as recently as Aug. 30, 2026.
The distinction between account-level withdrawal restrictions and exchange-level liquidity problems is therefore critical.
Withdrawal Complaints Are Not Enough to Establish Insolvency
The Reddit post is worth retaining as a monitoring lead because repeated reports of customers experiencing prolonged withdrawal problems can become significant if they are independently corroborated.
But the evidence presented so far does not justify turning the claim into a bankruptcy story.
The strongest allegation in the discussion is not actually the prediction that Bybit will fail. It is the suggestion that some customers have been unable to withdraw for unusually long periods and that complaints are being removed from community channels.
Those are verifiable questions.
An editorial investigation could look for clusters of complaints involving the same withdrawal type, jurisdictions, assets or compliance triggers. It could also establish whether users eventually received their funds, whether the restrictions were connected to AML reviews, and whether Bybit provided consistent explanations.
The alleged deletion of complaints is another potentially useful lead, but screenshots or archived versions of removed posts would be needed before drawing conclusions. A community moderation policy can remove posts for reasons unrelated to solvency.
The bankruptcy argument itself currently rests on analogy.
The author compares the reported restrictions with events preceding Mt. Gox, FTX and other exchange failures. But the fact that withdrawal restrictions occurred before previous collapses does not mean withdrawal restrictions predict insolvency in every case. Exchanges routinely restrict individual accounts because of AML investigations, sanctions screening, suspicious transactions, security concerns, jurisdictional restrictions or operational issues.
Bybit’s own documentation confirms that several such restrictions exist.
More importantly, the exchange has already experienced the sort of stress that would normally provide a much stronger test of liquidity. The February 2025 hack removed approximately $1.46 billion from a single cold wallet. Bybit nevertheless says it processed the overwhelming majority of withdrawal requests within hours and subsequently restored its reserve position.
That history does not make Bybit immune from future failure. No centralized exchange is.
It does, however, make the current Reddit claim substantially weaker than the headline suggests.
There is also a danger in interpreting user complaints through the lens of previous exchange collapses. After FTX, every prolonged withdrawal complaint naturally looks like a potential early warning. That is useful for vigilance, but it can also produce false positives.
The more interesting question is whether these complaints form a new, measurable pattern.
If reports continue appearing from unrelated users, involve large balances, remain unresolved for months and begin to coincide with broader operational changes, unusual reserve movements or other signs of financial stress, the story would become much stronger.
For now, the Sept. 7 Reddit discussion should remain exactly what it is: an unverified social-monitoring lead.
There are genuine customer complaints worth tracking, but there is currently no credible evidence in the material reviewed that Bybit is approaching bankruptcy.
Shane Neagle is a financial markets analyst and digital assets journalist specializing in cryptocurrencies, memecoins, prediction markets, and blockchain-based financial systems. His work focuses on market structure, incentive design, liquidity dynamics, and how speculative behavior emerges across decentralized platforms.
He closely covers emerging crypto narratives, including memecoin ecosystems, on-chain activity, and the role of prediction markets in pricing political, economic, and technological outcomes. His analysis examines how capital flows, trader psychology, and platform design interact to create rapid market cycles across Web3 environments.
Alongside digital assets, Shane follows broader fintech and online trading developments, particularly where traditional financial infrastructure intersects with blockchain technology. His research-driven approach emphasizes understanding why markets behave the way they do, rather than short-term price movements, helping readers navigate fast-evolving crypto and speculative markets with clearer context.