Bitcoin Forum

From a long list of restricted countries who had been asked for additional verification procedure, Six countries are now free to use the platform again without the need to proceed the that additional verification level.
The countries are :
- Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Guyana
- Laos
- Ethiopia
- Sri Lanka
- Tunisia
Today, i received an email from localbitcoins about the update as i am a citizen from one of the mentioned countries. However, i can't find a public announcement and even the terms in its verification policy didn't updated as well:
https://localbitcoins.com/guides/verification-guide

It is strange that this list did not contain some countries such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Venezuela.
Mostly, countries banned because of incompatibility with new amendments to licensing laws in the European Union or the increased risk of money laundering in those countries.

LBC platform is popular, so I think they will give you some time to withdraw your money if there is any change, but in the end, "Not your keys, Not your coins" and it is dangerous to keep the money in a platform that may freeze your account and confiscate your money.

The times of anonymity seem to be over, even p2p platforms are forced to introduce KYC procedures. Who would have thought a few years ago that something like this would happen?

So what exactly is the different between requiring "additional verification" and "standard verification"? Is it simply that users in these countries had to go all the way through to Tier 3 verification, and now they don't have to, or are/were there other special requirements for them?

LocalBitcoins is peer-to-peer in name only. You have to sign up on their centralized website, you have to complete KYC, and you have to deposit the coins you want to trade to their centralized wallets. They are as centralized as they come.

True decentralized peer-to-peer protocols such as Bisq remain KYC free.

I guess almost every user from those countries deleted their LBC account to get the remaining balance on their wallet! Seems they are slow with every kind of processing, they didn't even update their terms and policies but send email to the users but you can't consider this as official until there is an update in their terms.

@OP: And how was it for you before the announcement? Did you also get the same limits as others on max verification?


Yup, that's it from what I understood, talking to a trader from Sri Lanka. They had to perform the entire gauntlet of verification (so you had no option to trade even at the most basic level). Going to have to ask him now if he had to do anything different now.

Hopefully many of them found alternative platforms and won't return to LocalBitcoins. There are far better actually decentralized and actually peer-to-peer exchanges out there which don't require KYC - Bisq, Hodl Hodl, LocalCryptos, for example. The only good reason to use LocalBitcoins is because, unfortunately, it came first so still has more volume than these better solutions in some countries.

Bit sucky for people who have had to go through Tier 3 privacy invasion KYC requirements, and are now being told they didn't need to. I would bet my bottom satoshi that LocalBitcoins won't delete the extra information/data/documents of these individuals that they are now holding unnecessarily.

I have been using LBC than completely decentralized p2p platform because as an advertiser on LBC I feel comfortable while trading with verified accounts but for someone who don't want to reveal their personal details just for few conversion should use the alternative like localcryptos but some countries don't have any volume so they should go for paxful or LBC if they very unlucky.

I have been using LBC in early 2015 without to proceed to any verification policy. I left it before they start enforcing KYC to all users among different levels but i kept receiving emails about major updates. Recently, i started using localcryptos (old localethereum) and by trying to migrate my reputation from LBC, i was asked to submit personal docs for KYC verification so i left it again, but i know many who still use it as their only option like the ones in countries where no available exchanges for them.

They should have also under GDPR the rights to ask Localbitcoins to delete that data if they no longer need it. I think that's actually the only good bit of GDPR (the right to be forgotten) that I now use whenever I withdraw access of service. So I'd recommend anyone affected by this to contact LBC (it's in the privacy policy) and request this. In fact, if you stop using LBC or any exchange they have to do this at your request or they face a fine from the EU.


Good on you. Localcryptos is the next best thing, closest to how LBC worked and there's where the volume's at now. I still think more people should use Bisq or similar but it is understandably hard to pick up volume the way it functions.

Although I know LocalBitcoins are based in Finland, my understanding of GDPR (which may well be flawed given I am not European) was that the individual requesting for their data to be deleted must also be a citizen of an EU country. Am I mistaken here? Given that none of the countries listed are EU countries, then I don't think it applies.

Their Privacy Policy (https://localbitcoins.net/privacy_policy/) isn't very helpful - it seems that the only way to have your data deleted is to delete your account, and even then, they won't delete it for another five years.

I am pretty sure countries that were affected have had traders migrate to alternative platforms so the volumes could be pretty decent in the alternative platforms like Localcryptos as compared to Localbitcoins as of today.

I still don't understand why they had to introduce very strict verification procedures only to relax them for some countries. Maybe they have realized that the popularity is going down the drain as the exodus of traders continues.

Probably LBC lost most of its customers from those countries list but the price also might get premium if there are not many alternative platforms there so there are chances for the traders to come back again but not going to get all the lost customers.

Verification procedures are coming under the regulation of it country, so countries in that list may have laws which go against cryptos that is why they temporarily stopped their service but it took very long time to resume back as before.

Those are on a different list (https://localbitcoins.com/guides/verification-guide), banned with no way of dealing even with additional verification.



GDPR rules do not apply only to citizens of the EU in this case, the first paragraph of article 3 makes no difference between citizens and foreigners as long as the company is based in the EU


https://edpb.europa.eu/sites/edpb/files/files/file1/edpb_guidelines_3_2018_territorial_scope_after_public_consultation_en_0.pdf

In simple terms, what they are saying is that there is high risk of engagement in illegal countries compared to another country and in real terms, it's discrimination. It's just simple as that but again, they are justified in their analysis and evaluation to use a blanket parameter for everyone not taking into consideration the peculiarities of each country.

I stopped using localbitcoins because in the past they asked for a lot of things when I bought bitcoin and the most irritating thing was one day that someone logged into my localbitcoins account and I received an email that someone logged into my localbitcoins account and when I joined with the support of localbitcoins and they returned my account to me and then I changed the password, but interestingly the next day someone enter in my account and I went in and changed the password, but I had to deliver so many documents again, I gave up to use localbitcoins. They have so many rules that it seems that many people just want to use their website to do money laundering and discriminate against certain countries.

Maybe your device was hacked already? I never faced such problem on their platform not even someone  whom I know. You should check your device.

For their unusual or unofficial decisions they have taken such decision in past too. I remember they have banned some users in past and also they blocked their service in some countries without any prior notification.