Bybit Shuts Down NFT and Inscription Services as Market Declines

Highlights:

• Bybit will shut down its NFT and Inscription marketplaces by April 8, 2025.
• Bybit users should transfer their assets to other platforms before the closure.
• The NFT market has seen a significant decline, with trading volumes dropping drastically.

Bybit, a cryptocurrency exchange, has announced that it will shut down its NFT and Inscription marketplaces on April 8, 2025. This decision aligns with Bybit’s strategic directions as the exchange looks to streamline its services offering. Apart from these shutdowns, Bybit will cease operations of its Initial Decentralized Exchange Offering (IDO) products as well.

JUST IN: BYBIT SHUTS DOWN ITS NFT MARKETPLACE, INSCRIPTION, AND IDO SERVICES

Source: @Crypto_Briefing pic.twitter.com/o9YgxbwEZ8

— Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable (@RoundtableSpace) April 1, 2025

Declining NFT Market and Bybit’s Response

In the press release issued on April 1, Bybit informed its clients that it would shut down both the NFT and Inscription marketplaces on April 8, 2025, at 4:00 PM (UTC). The decision comes during a challenging period for Bybit, following a massive security breach in February 2025. The breach led to the company suffering over $1.46 billion loss to hackers affiliated with North Korea. Although attempts to track the stolen crypto are still ongoing, some of the lost crypto remains untraceable.

The overall trading volumes of NFTs have declined sharply, and currently, trading volumes are below 70% of peak levels. The market value that reached the $18 million level a year ago has shrunk to below $5.34 million. This situation is even worse compared to higher volumes recorded in December 2024, when the volume crossed $113 million. As a result, platforms such as Bybit have no choice but to reconsider their offerings.

What This Means for Bybit Users

As Bybit prepares to discontinue its NFT and Inscription services, customers are advised to manage their investments before April 8 deadline. The platform has offered directions to the users regarding how to transfer their assets. For ETH based NFTs, one visit OpenSea, Blur or Magic Eden while for Mantle Chain, the assets can be moved to Element Marketplace or Mintle.

In case of holding airdropped tokens from IDOs, the platform advises users to transfer them from the Web3 Cloud Wallet to a Web3 seed phrase or the private key wallet. Users should complete these tasks as soon as possible before the product pages become inaccessible in order not to complicate the process.

Bybit Reclaims No. 2 Spot in Trading Volume with $3.61 Billion Inflows

Recently, Bybit has restored its ranking as the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by the trading volume. The exchange achieved the milestone in March where it posted $3.61 billion in capital, making it the best among centralized exchanges for the month. This increase in activity took its total value locked (TVL) to $14.9bn by 31 March 2025, highlighting continuously strengthening confidence in the platform despite the recent setback.

DeFiLama shows that after being hacked in February, Bybit's capital inflow in March reached $3.61 billion, ranking first among all CEXs, indicating that its customers are returning after the hack. Binance's inflow in March was $3.545 billion, ranking second. Currently, the total… pic.twitter.com/mstyw3SZ13

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) April 1, 2025

However, its revival was due to the implementation of the Retail Price Improvement (RPI) mechanism by the exchange. This feature introduced higher amount of liquidity, especially for such trading pairs as BTC/USDT and ETH/USDT preserving a platform’s reputation as the most popular trading site across the globe.