Topic: What's your thoughts on the recent Localbitcoins.com ban of its Iran-based users (Read 377 times)

I actually highly doubt that the US pressure has much to do with it. Finland has been rather on the side of the anti-US rhetoric of the EUrozone (sort of a solidarity move from the Scandinavians really). For now, yes, the political axis has the EU firmly on the US ally rationale, but there's been so much going on now to look at how to skirt the Iran sactions: led by Germany, France and the UK. There was a lot of determination to save JCPOA... and LBC is probably only just doing this in the short measure. I could be wrong, this could just be individual company decisions.

Well, there are so many serious reasons behind that banning for sure. I think they made a serious violation in the website so that the localbitcoins website had no choice and just banned their country. Bitcoin is not totally banned in the said country only the domain of localbitcoins website.
Maybe in the future owner of the website will try to revoke that ban in that country who knows.

They probably live in USA. The more I hear about that country the less I like it. LB don't ask for personal info but they do suggest to you to use your info once you trade a certain amount. On my account it says "you have traded a significant amount of bitcoin in the last whatever amount of time, please consider updating your personal info. You only need to give your info if you making very big transactions I think. There is some sort of limit but I didn't bother to look because it is so much it will probably never become an issue. They understand on LB that people launder money in large amount. No need to ask personal info from someone who only selfs or buys hundreds of $$$ worth of bitcoin. It's only when its in the tens of thousands of dollars. Anyway you are supposed to record your business transactions for your end of year tax audit. You are responsible for it, not the exchange or anyone else. You don't need to convert to fiat often anyway. I try keeping it to a minimum since I spend bitcoin on things. If you don't want to pay income tax then spend your bitcoin on things. You will pay VAT of course. Only if you covert over a certain amount to fiat will you pay capital gains tax. If you earn under a certain amount you don't pay tax and depending on what you make you fall into a category tax bracket. I think capital gains it somewhere between 10%-21% It depends on the bracket you fall under.

I don't see the big deal either
it is just one of the platform to trade bitcoins between people peer to peer
and seeing all the arrests and troubles people are getting into while trading at LB  I'd think twice using it anyways
Iran probably didn't even notice the news

Every cryptocurrencies exchange has it norms I believed the said country has valuate the rules governing the Localbitcoins platform, I think the management team take this decision for the safety of their platform and the interest of all the users, this is the only way to create standard and avoid the platform been banned by the whole world in the nearest future.

Wow.... Do people actually read before they post. I bet most people here didn't even open the link never mind even read what it says. It has nothing to do with the government. localbitcoin chose to backout of servicing customers from Iran because of US sanctions. It is in the second bloody paragraph -_-

Could they not just use a proxy?? I don't see the big deal?

Localbitcoins has the right to exclude countries they think bear risks to their business
LB is a Finland based company but it seems like they are happy to comply with the recent US sanctions
says worlds about how independent the businesses really are
I do not think this is the right thing to do , since Iran doesn't use LB much to start with
but it shows that we live in a globalist world and that everything in it is interdependent and not always in a good way

Localbitcoin become much regulated required KYC details even they Banned Iran!!! . I think its against the policy of America even most of the countries cant able trade with Iran because of this US regulation . Now they imposed ban in crypto currency also.

Are there any Iranians in the forum? I believe the solution for you is to start using BISQ, https://bisq.network/

Don't forget to tell your friends.

We all know about Trump Vs Iran war , what I think is they did that to block the Bitcoins commerce in Iran by the influence of Trump , since he has been a huge supported behind the sheets to be honest.
They just are scared that it will explode the trade of cryptocurrencies in that particular country , I don't think this is justified local Bitcoins should have been unbiased , if they are taking this into consideration then they should ban buying and selling in various other countries too.
This is senseless of them.
But at the end it's not what we are able to see on the surface , we don't know who is pulling the strings from behind.... Or maybe we do and his name starts with a T.

It seems the banning of Iranian users is because a force from the government but unfortunately, there is no explaining which government who force LBC.
I only think this word:


But that was what I guess so far after I read the article and maybe I was wrong. I wonder how Iranians user will use trade bitcoin if they cannot use LBC.

The business decided to pull out and nothing can be done with that, pressures are surely the thing that encourage this company to shut down their supports/services from this country, known issues might be the case and businessman don't want to be trapped behind and compromised
its name.

Anyway, there's still some channels/venues that they can continue the trade, it's only LocalBitcoins, crypto trades always knows how to find ways.

They are following Finland financial regulations, as it's the country where the headquarters of Localbitcoins is based. But Usa sanctions also play a big role on this story. I think they fear shady activities in Iran, maybe related to terrorism.
There is no way to know what the intelligence service of Usa knows about the relation between iranians and crypto currencies, but or course they know much more than any internet speculations.

that is why centralization could never work in bitcoin (decentralized) world. things look P2P on localbitcoins but they are centralized which is why "bans" like this can happen. unfortunately that has been a problem in bitcoin ecosystem for ages and although mitigation exists with decentralized exchanges, they are not that popular.

i didn't know Localbitcoins had such a high volume though! alternatives exist and there are cases which offer much better rates, i personally never find Localbitcoins rates any good which is why i have never used it before. i prefer true P2P trades when it comes to exchanging bitcoin with fiat.

If you actually read the article, you'll find the alternatives there. One is Bisq decentralized exchange since they've recently integrated Farsi for Iranian users and the other is Hodlhodl which offers similar services to Localbitcoins.

You got it backward this time. Iran is not banning Bitcoin, LBC just decided to close the doors.



Stop double posting dude.

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I believe Iranian users can take care of themselves. They can use other exchange or trade it here. It's not like this is the first time they face a difficult situation, and unless you certainly know how to help them, it's better to stop speculating.

Why is this a surprise? The U.S. government has infiltrated the platform and jailed those selling bitcoin on it, accusing them of violating money transmitter and money laundering laws. While I appreciate the intent of those who created the platform, by now it is thoroughly compromised.

To avoid this, I suggest users buy and sell bitcoin on exchanges that are legally compliant.

I stopped selling bitcoins on LocalBitcoins a long time ago because I didn't want to become a martyr.

It is a really weird situation to ban users because of their Geo location and i doubt whether it is imposed by sanctions imposed on Iran by other countries and if this is another restriction i wont be surprised but the sad thing is that bitcoin is meant to remove all these restrictions and yet these central service providers are restricting these users because of their location is really pathetic. I am not sure whether they have other options to trade bitcoin but they can relay on P2P based systems or they can built one for the traders.

This is my thoughts exactly but terrorists in Iran have been moving out funds illegally for ages and if it was to be a ban because of its illegally use to move out funds, shouldn't the ban be from the Iranian government directly?