My Bybit.com MT5 account was frozen on March 9, 2026, with withdrawals suspended, and I was required to return $19,000 USD in legitimate trading profits.
This occurred because, following a significant surge in crude oil (USOUSD) at Monday's market open, I closed my long positions. During the withdrawal process, my request was rejected, and my account funds were frozen.
Subsequently, Bybit sent an email stating that my USOUSD trades violated their trading rules, but they provided no specific details on which rule was breached and demanded that I agree to the deduction. Below is the full record of all email correspondence:
Here are all my crude oil trading records: a total of four trades. Before March 5, I had never traded crude oil. The first three were 0.01-lot test orders with essentially no profit or loss—they were mainly to test spreads, leverage, commissions, etc. The fourth was a 1.5-lot long position opened on March 6 and closed on March 9.
All my operations were manual trades executed on the mobile app. There was absolutely no illegal, prohibited, arbitrage, hedging, fraud, money laundering, or insider trading activity. I went long on crude oil due to the sharp price rise caused by geopolitical tensions involving Iran—I anticipated the conflict would escalate, so I positioned accordingly. On March 9, crude oil experienced a sharp upward surge at open, and I closed for profit in a normal manner. Both entry and exit were standard operations, and the resulting profit is entirely legitimate and compliant.
At the same time, on X (formerly Twitter), I found another victim in an identical situation: they also opened a long position on March 6 and closed on March 9, with profits around $20,000 USD frozen by Bybit and required to be returned.
However, because this person is a KOL (key opinion leader/influencer), after posting about it, their risk control was lifted and funds were released within half a day. Post link: https://x.com/Hzzzz666/status/2031196547812306984
I privately messaged him, and he confirmed that the account was unblocked immediately after he posted publicly—Bybit processed it right away.
Under that post, many comments reported the exact same freeze situation: closing crude oil positions on March 9 led to malicious account freezing and demands to return profits. However, Bybit's relevant staff did not reply to ordinary users without high visibility/traffic.
I contacted several other victims, and they all stated it was normal trading and had no idea why they were required to return profits.
On X, there are also numerous historical posts accusing Bybit of freezing user funds without reason, refusing communication, leading to long-term fund lockups or forced acceptance of deductions.
In the past, there has never been a situation where a large number of users were mass-frozen at the same time due to profits from a single underlying asset. This incident occurred precisely because of the sharp surge in crude oil prices.
I now seriously suspect that Bybit MT5 is engaging in counterparty betting (B-book model) against users. After the massive crude oil surge on March 9, a large number of users profited from closing positions, causing significant losses for Bybit, which then illegally froze user profits.
If this is true, it constitutes serious financial fraud.
I cannot accept the deduction of my funds without any reason or evidence, nor can I accept why someone in the exact same situation was unblocked the same day due to high visibility/traffic, while ordinary users like us are ignored.
This occurred because, following a significant surge in crude oil (USOUSD) at Monday's market open, I closed my long positions. During the withdrawal process, my request was rejected, and my account funds were frozen.
Subsequently, Bybit sent an email stating that my USOUSD trades violated their trading rules, but they provided no specific details on which rule was breached and demanded that I agree to the deduction. Below is the full record of all email correspondence:
Here are all my crude oil trading records: a total of four trades. Before March 5, I had never traded crude oil. The first three were 0.01-lot test orders with essentially no profit or loss—they were mainly to test spreads, leverage, commissions, etc. The fourth was a 1.5-lot long position opened on March 6 and closed on March 9.
All my operations were manual trades executed on the mobile app. There was absolutely no illegal, prohibited, arbitrage, hedging, fraud, money laundering, or insider trading activity. I went long on crude oil due to the sharp price rise caused by geopolitical tensions involving Iran—I anticipated the conflict would escalate, so I positioned accordingly. On March 9, crude oil experienced a sharp upward surge at open, and I closed for profit in a normal manner. Both entry and exit were standard operations, and the resulting profit is entirely legitimate and compliant.
At the same time, on X (formerly Twitter), I found another victim in an identical situation: they also opened a long position on March 6 and closed on March 9, with profits around $20,000 USD frozen by Bybit and required to be returned.
However, because this person is a KOL (key opinion leader/influencer), after posting about it, their risk control was lifted and funds were released within half a day. Post link: https://x.com/Hzzzz666/status/2031196547812306984
I privately messaged him, and he confirmed that the account was unblocked immediately after he posted publicly—Bybit processed it right away.
Under that post, many comments reported the exact same freeze situation: closing crude oil positions on March 9 led to malicious account freezing and demands to return profits. However, Bybit's relevant staff did not reply to ordinary users without high visibility/traffic.
I contacted several other victims, and they all stated it was normal trading and had no idea why they were required to return profits.
On X, there are also numerous historical posts accusing Bybit of freezing user funds without reason, refusing communication, leading to long-term fund lockups or forced acceptance of deductions.
In the past, there has never been a situation where a large number of users were mass-frozen at the same time due to profits from a single underlying asset. This incident occurred precisely because of the sharp surge in crude oil prices.
I now seriously suspect that Bybit MT5 is engaging in counterparty betting (B-book model) against users. After the massive crude oil surge on March 9, a large number of users profited from closing positions, causing significant losses for Bybit, which then illegally froze user profits.
If this is true, it constitutes serious financial fraud.
I cannot accept the deduction of my funds without any reason or evidence, nor can I accept why someone in the exact same situation was unblocked the same day due to high visibility/traffic, while ordinary users like us are ignored.
