Topic: Rip localbitcoins.com - page 2. (Read 228 times)

It was also quite the monopoly of the P2P Bitcoin market which I never liked, so better that it shut down and paved the way for better alternatives. Similar to when there was a monopoly over a centralised exchange like MtGox, a darkweb market like Silk Road, a Bitcoin mixer like ChipMixer, or any other Bitcoin-based service. The ecosystem only gets stronger once the leading horse is taken down and the monopoly ends.

When a service was created to give privacy and ends up having to remove it, this was the biggest mistake of localbitcoin.  In the wake of this closure, others will benefit such as Bisq, Robosats and even Peach.  As long as there are similar services that operate on Tor, it is better to prefer them to many others.

whole saga explained in short
when P2P traders become popular. THEIR BANKS see people using personal accounts doing ALOT of wire transfers. much more than normal people do on personal accounts. this triggers banks to flag such accounts and investigate

in many cases those p2p traders had to upgrade to business accounts register as a payment facilitator/money service. which meant requirements of doing KYC

this eventually lead to localbitcoins needing to add this data collection feature

other events where scammers. who would buy bitcoin. and where the scammer would contact their own bank and claim that a hackers accessed their bank and sent some money to a thief. .. thus the scammer got the bitcoin and a fiat refund. and made the btc seller be flagged as a thief

this too caused sellers to want more info on the buyer to prove the buyer was the account holder

..
now here is the thing
DEX platforms are new. so they have yet to hit the scenarios localbitcoin sellers are hit with due to lack of popularity.. however when DEX seller get popular and start doing too many wire transfers or getting scammed and treated as thieves. they too will end up shutting up shop or going official.

thus DEX wont change things, its just the same saga in repeat. where DEX is just at the beginning and yet to hit the drama

I guess 10million volume wasnt enough to keep up the website..
Locallitecoins.com also gone, selling domain name for 5100$.
There are still some P2P exchanges on the internet, but lots of Nigerian scammers on them , I know localbitcoins was 100% anti scam and well upkept exchange.

These are the topics about the closure of Localbitcoins:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/localbitcoins-exchange-closed-after-10-years-of-operation-5439906
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/localbitcoins-closing-down-5439145
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/what-after-localbitcoinscom-shutting-down-5439202
Localbitcoins lost their trading volume because they used to be a p2p BTC exchange that later began to ask for KYC from their customers, their users were people who wanted to trade only p2p, so obviously trading volume was going to drop, as their customers moved to other BTC p2p exchanges.
Binance, OKX and other centralized exchanges are not true p2p exchanges because you do not trade directly with the other trading party.

I have never used LocalBitcoins.com for P2P but I knew that they have been here for so long. It’s the OG of the P2P crypto trading (but correct me if I am wrong). It’s just unfortunate that they have to close because of the declining number of traders in using their platform, so nothing is really permanent.

But there are still other P2P platforms from exchanges like Binance, KuCoin, OKX, ByBit, etc., that we can still use as of the moment.

Local bitcoin has been in the exchange business for quite a long term and to see how low volume the exchange has become long before their announced closer it is clear why they were in a rush to close down the exchange.

Trading volume is one of the major ways to check and maintain liquidities and another operational cost, and any business that has low volume will have a high chance of liquidation, so anyone that has a balance on local bitcoin should have withdrawn them by now since the announced closure of the exchange stipulate the durations of time that withdrawal will be open.

Not 1-2 months ago. LocalBitcoins announced their closure on February first week. They announced that their service will close on 16 February 2023. The fact is, they were still releasing new features til January 2023. At least this makes me think the decision did not take long. The company decided to close its platform within a short time. According to them, The trading volume in LocalBitcoins has been declining for a long time, and there is no significant market demand for their service. No company will run a business that is not profitable anymore. So, they had to take this decision.

Must have missed it , cant find the topic.

You're too late, it's has been discussed 1-2 months ago if I'm not mistaken

https://localbitcoins.com/



Shame to see it down after 10 years of trading on there.