Bybit Pay has integrated with Mesh’s network of more than 300 wallets, exchanges and financial platforms, giving Bybit’s claimed 80 million users a direct way to spend or transfer assets held in their exchange accounts. Summary Bybit users can pay or fund supported accounts without withdrawing assets first. Mesh-connected businesses can add Bybit Pay through their existing integration. Merchants can choose when and how funds settle across supported markets. Mesh raised $75 million at a $1 billion valuation in January. Bybit Pay removes a step from crypto payments Bybit said in a Sept. 3 announcement that users can now access their exchange balances when checking out or adding funds on platforms powered by Mesh. When Bybit Pay appears among the available payment methods, a customer can select it and use assets already held in a Bybit account. The process removes the need to withdraw funds to a separate wallet, convert them manually, or transfer them to another service before completing a transaction. For businesses, the integration adds another payment source without requiring a separate connection to Bybit. Companies that already use Mesh can enable Bybit Pay through the same technical setup, allowing them to accept payments from eligible Bybit users. Bybit described its customer base of 80 million as a potential market for participating merchants. The figure comes from the company and was not independently verified in the announcement. Settlement settings form another part of the service. According to Bybit, Mesh’s programmable tools let businesses set how and when funds are settled in different markets. The announcement did not list the supported cryptocurrencies, settlement currencies, transaction fees, or geographic restrictions attached to the new option. “People shouldn’t have to move their money to use it,” Mesh co-founder and CEO Bam Azizi said. “We bring the network to where the money already is.” Sophie Chen, head of marketing at Bybit Card and Pay, said customers can use an asset held in their account while the receiving platform obtains its preferred asset. Such conversion and settlement functions can reduce the number of manual steps required when the payer and recipient want different currencies. Bybit Pay is available to Mesh-connected businesses from Sept. 3, according to the exchange. Merchants must still choose to activate it before their customers can use the option. Mesh connects more than 300 financial platforms Mesh operates an infrastructure layer connecting wallets, crypto exchanges, and financial applications. Rather than requiring users to copy wallet addresses and arrange separate transfers, participating services can place supported accounts and payment choices inside their own interfaces. The network covers more than 300 platforms, according to Mesh. Its tools support digital asset transfers, account connections, and payment settlement between participating services, although access to individual functions depends on the platform, asset, and market involved. A similar model was used when CoinDCX added Mesh transfers in April 2024. The connection allowed CoinDCX customers to move assets from linked accounts without copying long wallet addresses, while transfers were initiated through an in-app menu. PayPal Ventures had also invested $5 million in Mesh using the PYUSD stablecoin in January 2024. At the time, Mesh was developing services for payments, account aggregation, and trading across hundreds of connected platforms. The company has since moved further into payment settlement. Merchants may receive a chosen stablecoin or fiat currency even when a customer pays with a different supported asset, depending on the configuration available through the service. Such arrangements place asset conversion behind the payment screen instead of requiring the customer to complete each step separately. In May, Mesh also entered another public-sector use case when Bermuda adopted Stellar rails for government payments. The program coincided with an integration between Stellar and Mesh, which connected participating wallets and services to stablecoin settlement on the network. Mesh funding has put payment infrastructure in focus Mesh raised $75 million in a Series C funding round in January, bringing its total financing above $200 million and valuing the company at $1 billion. Dragonfly Capital led the round, with Paradigm, Moderne Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, SBI Investment, and Liberty City Ventures also participating. The company said it would use the financing to extend its operations across Latin America, Asia, and Europe. As crypto.news reported in January, Mesh led a week in which 14 crypto projects disclosed a combined $243.9 million in financing. The company was formerly known as Front Finance and had raised about $205 million in total at that point. Investor interest continued in July, when Axios reported that Binance planned to lead another Mesh round at a valuation of as much as $2 billion. Neither company had formally announced or completed the reported deal when the funding talks emerged. A transaction at the reported valuation would double the company’s January figure. The talks also included a direct connection to the exchange market because Binance, like Bybit, holds customer assets that could be used through payment tools if the relevant services are linked. Mesh’s existing investors already include Coinbase Ventures and PayPal Ventures, giving the company financial ties to both crypto exchanges and a major payments group. Its latest integration adds Bybit’s customer accounts as another funding source across participating merchant and financial platforms. U.S. users face separate tax and access questions Bybit’s announcement described the Mesh connection as a global integration but did not state whether Bybit Pay would become available to customers in the United States. Access will depend on Bybit’s regional services, the location of each merchant, and the assets supported for a particular transaction. For Americans who can access a supported crypto payment service, spending digital assets can carry a federal tax obligation even when the payment takes place directly from an exchange balance. The Internal Revenue Service treats digital assets as property rather than currency for U.S. tax purposes. Its guidance says exchanging crypto for goods or services counts as a disposal, requiring the user to calculate any capital gain or loss from the asset’s cost basis and fair market value at the time of payment. The IRS also requires taxpayers to report digital asset transactions even when they do not produce a taxable gain. Records should include the asset, transaction time, number of units, dollar value, and cost basis, according to the agency. Broker reporting rules add another consideration. The IRS says certain custodial trading platforms, hosted wallet providers, and processors of digital asset payments fall within final reporting regulations. Gross-proceeds reporting began for covered transactions completed from Jan. 1, 2025, while basis reporting for certain transactions started on Jan. 1, 2026.
