Bybit Launches Football Season 2026 With Up to $1 Million in Rewards

As major crypto exchanges battle for user attention, trading platforms are increasingly borrowing ideas from sports betting, gaming, and prediction markets.

Bybit is the latest to lean into the trend.

The world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume has launched Football Season 2026, a multi-stage campaign that combines trading activity with football predictions and offers participants a share of up to $1 million in rewards.

The campaign, which runs from June 9 through July 19, arrives as exchanges search for new ways to keep users engaged beyond traditional spot and derivatives trading. Rather than relying solely on trading competitions or leaderboard-based rewards, Bybit's latest initiative blends market activity with community prediction mechanics tied to one of the world's biggest sporting events.

Loading tweet...

View Tweet

Under the campaign, users earn Points through trading and platform activities before staking those Points on football match outcomes. Successful predictions increase Point balances, while incorrect predictions reduce them. At the end of each stage, rewards are distributed proportionally among participants based on their final Point totals.

Unlike winner-takes-all tournaments, every qualifying participant receives a share of the reward pool, creating a model that resembles the growing popularity of prediction markets and community-driven competitions across crypto.

The campaign is split into three stages aligned with the football calendar:

• Group Stage: June 9–28

• Knockout Stage: June 28–July 12

• Finals: July 12–19

Point balances reset at the start of each stage, giving participants multiple opportunities to compete for rewards throughout the tournament.

The Rise of Gamified Trading

Bybit's campaign reflects a broader shift taking place across the industry.

Over the past year, exchanges, prediction markets, and trading platforms have increasingly experimented with engagement models that blend entertainment, competition, and financial activity. From sports-related prediction products to event-driven trading campaigns, platforms are looking for ways to make participation more interactive while attracting new users.

Football Season 2026 extends that approach by turning tournament predictions into a rewards mechanism layered on top of trading activity.

Prize pools range from $50,000 to $325,000 per stage depending on community participation, with total rewards reaching as much as $1 million across the campaign.

Rewards will be distributed in Mantle (MNT) tokens based on their USD-equivalent value at the time of distribution.

Bybit is also offering a $5 MNT reward for new users who deposit at least $100 and complete a minimum $10 trade.

The campaign is available to users who complete Identity Verification Level 1, although participation remains restricted in certain jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and countries within the European Economic Area.