Topic: What after localbitcoins.com shutting down - page 2. (Read 1197 times)

I'm new here and not affiliated with the project, but that's a great idea, I didn't realise it was an option. I'll mention it to their team and see if they want to do that. Thanks for the advice!

By the look of things and based on your posting history, something tells me that you are the promoter of basicswapdex.com, which is OK. But why don't you just create a new announcement thread in the Exchanges board about your service for proper visibility instead of bumping old topics about LocalBitcoins shutting down?

You could also use the same thread to post about new updates and contests.

And now the main litecoin account is tweeting about the competition too:
https://twitter.com/litecoin/status/1754527804165873684

About five or six localbitcoin sellers have migrated to ParticlMarketplace as it effectively adds an enforced trustless layer to transfers of funds. particl.store shows a portal view of current offers and pricing.

You can access the marketplace from particl's default wallet at particl.io. Shortly you'll be able to pay in most major cryptos directly, so it should end up having better swap options than the old local bitcoins.

The decebtrlaosed exchange particl launched two years ago now also supports Litecoin MWEB (mimblewimble). The Litecoin and Particl forundatios have also just announced a partnership because of this, as it finally gives privacy coin users a place to trade. It seems to eBay the safest, cheapest and most anonymous option for privacy coin users.

Both foundations agave also announced a competition where they are giving away five first edition Lealana 1LTC physicals over the coming weeks to celebrate, see here for more info:

https://twitter.com/BasicSwapDEX/status/1753482630622798198

https://twitter.com/BasicSwapDEX/status/1753481499356401731

So Mr EarnOnVictor, what were you saying again?

It's even barely 2 months lol - https://twitter.com/callebtc/status/1643249783824437252
Paxful - Deposits are not being credited



Maybe the business records you were referring to were those of starting to scam their users right after localbitcoins announced that they would exit the market 

The entire point of people using these kind of platforms is specifically because they are not operating on this type of model. Many people want to trade peer-to-peer, and they certainly don't want their peer-to-peer exchange to turn themselves in to a central order book type of exchange. If users wanted that kind of platform, then why would they not just have abandoned all their privacy and security and signed up on one of the many such platforms already?

Still, there is no real reason to trade peer-to-peer if you are going to do it via a centralized platform which requires you to submit KYC and deposit your coins to their centralized wallets before you can trade. You are sacrificing all the benefits of trading peer-to-peer by doing so, and instead gaining the huge disadvantages of zero privacy and zero security that you get by using a centralized exchange. Most serious peer-to-peer traders abandoned LBC a long time ago when they first started requiring KYC. Paxful will be no different.

If you want to trade truly decentralized, then use Bisq.

I believe I was saying it in this topic, or another one: These platforms will all have to follow the same pattern sooner or later. There is no reason why the rules on money laundering should be different depending on the type of exchange. P2P marketplaces or a CEX, it will make no difference. There is a myth with people thinking that sites like LocalBitcoins or Paxful are decentralized because they are P2P. This is not true.

Anyway, who can believe a company can operate by saying "I don't care about laws".

It will come little by little because each platform operates in a different country (with different laws and different speed to apply them).
You can compare with the number of countries considered as tax havens. Look at the list of countries 30 years ago and compare it with the current list.
It's the same: soon or later they follow the same rules.

Changing the business model from Paxful to Binance doesn't change much in the end. The same laws and the same earning potential for the company. It's just a matter of the customer's base. Not to mention the CEX industry is already quite saturated and it's not easy to be competitive

Do you think other similar sites like Paxful will also meet the same fate because of same KYC reasons ?

Paxful was also spreading fast as they spent good money in promotions.

Another doubt I have is that why are these platforms not moving to an exchange type of business. They already have good customer base and the required tech to handle crypto transactions. They just have to redesign as a crypto exchange and become profitable like Binance.

There does not have to be any form of compromise when it comes to your data and more importantly, you do not have to trust anyone with your data, you do not have to trust any system at all. There is already enough decentralized options to avoid KYcs.

Do not ever actually risk personal information, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. If you need to use any of this, then use a throw away address or phone number, which does not provide a privacy risk.

- Jay -

They say on their landing page that they will be keeping all data for 5 years, which is pretty standard for various KYC/AML requirements around the world. You should use the link they provide to delete your account to set the 5 year timer ticking as soon as possible to get your data deleted.

You don't. There are a number of properly decentralized exchanges out there (not exchanges like LBC which used "DEX" or "P2P" as marketing while being completely centralized) which do not require KYC or indeed any personal information at all. Seek them out and use them - https://kycnot.me/

Exactly. They survived for years when bitcoin was worth a few hundred dollars, but now a price of ~$24k is too low for them? This is because every serious peer to peer trade abandoned the platform when they became just another centralized data farm.

Yeah, I understand they aren't hacked neither running away without concerning about their long term build reputation but we can't sure about that the documents will be safer anymore as the business is running after they shutdown so in case if a hacker manage to pull those data and wanted to abuse them then most people will be in danger anyway I hope they will keep them safe or burn them completely.

Localbitcoins are not shutting down because they were hacked, or that there was a data breach, neither are they filing for bankruptcy at this very time, according to them they are shutting down because of the "crypto winter", though that's not totally true as their trading volume began to drop when they started requesting KYC, and that could be the true reason why they are shutting down. The good thing is they are giving a 12 month period for everyone to withdraw their funds.

As for your documents you mentioned, the risk would be higher if they were breached or hacked, but as they are terminating the operation of their business, i don't know what they would do with their users documents, it doesn't specify it in their terms of service under the section of "Termination of business":
Probably the "lawful closure of the business" has something to do with what would happen to the documents that their users provided to them.

I owe you some merits for this fact, I never thought that LBC is shutting down but now they did and now I am afraid that what will happen to the documents I provided there for high trading limit.

Data is the new way of making money but at some point we have to trust someone with the current system for the progression or just being the holder until the system turns into decentralized which prioritize the anonymity over the money.

It's on the back of a larger decline. 2 months ago BUSD had a market cap of $22 billion. Today it is only $12 billion.

These are the risks you take if you decide to use a centralized exchange. Centralized coins, centralized tokens, centralized wallets, centralized KYC. You are risking your coins, your data, your money.

Maybe not, but they can be sure to face months of stress, paperwork, and legal costs, in order to clear their name and prove it wasn't them that withdrew a few hundred thousand dollars worth of stolen money. Or maybe instead of laundering money in their name, the criminals just open some credit cards or take out some loan in their name, and wrack up a few hundred thousand dollars worth of debt, which again will take months and a lot of legal costs in order to clear.

Having your identity stolen can literally ruin your life. KYC should not be taken lightly, especially when centralized exchanges have proven time and time again that they are incapable of keeping your data secure.

Yes, recently read the dispute the BUSD is facing after Paxos announced they won't mint the stable coin again, over 17.7% of BUSD has been redeemed, which amounts to about 3 Billion BUSD taken away from the market. This will affect the strength of BUSD given time as this just happened few days after the Paxos announcement.


The high risk involved in KYC is so nefarious to the customers that submit their documents to third party platforms. Satoshi didn't wish for this, but the market has gone astray from the initial plan of Satoshi. Somehow, I think the investigators of crime would know that the documents used to launder money doesn't belong to the launderer. So, innocent victims may not get penalized for what they didn't do, however staying clear from illicit activities is what matters. 

People said the same thing about FTX, Celsius, Voyager, BlockFi, and all the other collapsed exchanges. And all these collapsed exchanges were telling their users that everything was just fine right up until the minute they suspended all activities and froze all their users' coins. Any centralized exchange is only ever one bad decision, one hack, one piece of legislation or regulation away from the same fate.

Sure, but my point is that it remains incredibly cheap for a criminal to buy your KYC documents and open an account in your name in order to launder money. KYC does very little to prevent money laundering; all it achieves is shifting the blame on to some innocent person who had all their KYC documents leaked/shared/stolen/sold from some centralized exchange.

Most of the disputes binance is facing didn't happen now and they're still running their business or trying to put things on the right track. It's possible they'll face more troubles soon, if they don't settle all the pipelined issues in the company. Looking at CZ's last letter to his employees that leaked some weeks back after they experienced the huge decline in customers. He tried to pass a unique message, that he doesn't need customer's funds to run his business. He may be wrong or right, but it seems his team is strong and they could witstand whatever problem that may come their way.

For the kyc documents that's been sold on the dark web, it's certain that documents can be gotten cheaper on their marketplace, due to the competition, yet, multiplied by the number of KYC documents in stock, they'll make a good amount of money, (1000 into 1000 is a million file) and these hackers could be getting these files in tens of millions. That aside, the buyers of these files can be considered account sellers; okx, cloud accounts, bank accounts etc, they don't sell the end products of these files for peanuts, an account could go for 60 to 100 dollars depending on the platform. Even local Bitcoin accounts sold for around $50 in the market. So, despite the cheap documents in the market it still yields more money when processed; utilized to create accounts. It's a huge market.

Binance are currently "in negotiations" with regulators about their illegal activities and secret transfers, so expect some kind of punishment and fall out from that. They experienced the largest single day outflow of money since the collapse of FTX earlier this week. Their stablecoin, BUSD, is struggling to maintain its peg under regulatory pressure and some users are not able to cash out. I wouldn't call that flourishing. I would call that a warning sign to get your money off their exchange and in to your own wallet.

Hacked/stolen KYC data is very cheap, and money launderers do not have to spend much at all. The hacker who stole KYC data from Binance for example was selling it on the dark net for a rate of between 1 and 5 USD per 1,000 documents. 5 bucks for 1,000 identities.

I agree with most of what you expressed here, and it has affirmed my view that KYC is not the reason why crypto businesses are dying like some would let you believe. If anyone looks around, if a customer leaves a KYC-demanding establishment, there is a very higher tendency that such is moving to another one that would demand the same, but with a better service.

I've done that many times, and in this present dispensation, no one can tell me that a decentralized operation has more customers and volumes than the centralised one that demands KYC. This is obvious, and thank you for mentioning Binance, that's one of the crypto-related companies that are demanding it and is doing well. What about casinos to say the least?

However, it would be wrong to depend on social media for your P2P, this is one of the reasons why many people are easily swindled.