Bitcoin Forum

In this scenario a robbery (https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/malaysian-robbed-of-365000-in-cash-when-he-met-bogus-bitcoin-seller-and) can easily be arranged. Also your identity is compromised, anyone can see how much bitcoins you have on the Blockchain, the transactions you made. It's all on record on the Blockchain...using  this face to face transaction means you are putting a face and a name to the money. Government officials can pretend they are traders and apprehend you on the spot. There are so many ways this could go wrong. If privacy is important to you, Face2face trading is a bad idea.

https://diutocoinnews.com.ng/nigeria-crypto-p2p-drops-f2f-emerges/7390/

I disagree with the title. Bitcoin was designed to pay for goods and services. This can be done in some cases from the comfort of your home and sometimes - especially if physical things are involved - face to face. And if paper money is chosen as counterpart for bitcoin, face to face it the way.

Robbery is possible in the same way if you go with the cash in the pocket to buy an used car. One has to properly think it over and do as it's good for him. I've heard of good trades, I've heard of robberies too.

In the "authorities" part, P2P exchange with bank transfer is similarly dangerous: authorities will know your bank account, then your details. Or some may use hacked bank accounts to send you money. Or some will pretend it was a mistake and revert fiat transaction.

There are plenty of ways to be caught/exposed or robbed, whether you go face to face or not. It's a reality and one has to understand what he's doing. Bitcoin is valuable and one has to be careful.
But I don't see this bitcoin's fault, neither the trading platform's.

Welp, no one gets to decide if a certain way of transacting with their bitcoin is "Bitcoin ethics" or not. Every single way of transacting with bitcoin has it's own positives and negatives. In this case, the positive is that you can accept physical cash.

As for the privacy argument, there's a reason why people should practice proper coin control[1].

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[1] https://nopara73.medium.com/coin-control-is-must-learn-if-you-care-about-your-privacy-in-bitcoin-33b9a5f224a2

Here Bitcoin isn't being used to pay for goods and services. It is not used as a currency perse it is simply traded. This is another form of p2p trading created to avoid the eyes of the Nigerian government. Hope you get my point

No, I don't get it, sorry. What's the difference between trading bitcoin for paper money, trading bitcoin for diamonds, or trading paper money for diamonds for example? Isn't still trading? Aren't the risks for getting robbed the same?

The only part I've missed was that bitcoin is no longer legally accepted by financial institutions in Nigeria. And that may make any trading platform there a honeypot. That's what should be emphasized.

That does not stop you from practicing privacy and/or anonymity.

For example, you transact fiat to bitcoin with someone. After, you use as mixer to tumble the coin, the person will not be able to trace the fund link to you again on blockchain. You can even mix it and divide the bitcoin into different addresses and effectively making use of coin control while making transaction. But, this does not yet fully address the fact that face-to-face meetup for transaction can result to harm for one party.

I totally agree to this, even if there are still other ways to make people not to link your identity to the bitcoin bought by making use of mixers, this does not change the fact that he knows he transacted bitcoin with you physically. The person may know your work place, your home address and many things about you like the places you like going. This may later lead to harm. I totally not agreeing with face-to-face p2p trading.

There are still options, I mean decentralized exchanges like Bisq, Hodlhold, Localcryptos. People can still make use of decentralized exchange for P2P trading. But I am wondering if the Nigerian CBN are also there trying to buy and sell bitcoin to people.

I cannot open the link but is it really that bad? Can authorities really do that? Are all types of crypto transactions there a criminal act now? I just came across another topic where they plant agents on P2P platforms like Binance and Paxful and use some crypto keywords to trigger the bank and close the customer account. Security and privacy are definitely important but if they cannot sell or spend their BTC anywhere else, they might as well take the risks of F2F.

I see it like at customs: based on rules and also some randomness, they can check transactions here and there, or, as said, try to trade themselves. One may be lucky, another one may be caught. The risk is there. I don't know how big though.

Bitcoin is a digital currency encrypted on the Blockchain and is transferred from peer to peer. You cannot cut off peer to peer from the system. Bitcoin cannot also be considered a currency if it doesn't change hands or isn't used to pay for goods or services

It is actually that bad and the government here are doing all they can to frustrate Bitcoin transactions inorder to maintain the control they have over the people; Bitcoin offers a level of freedom, especially to the younger generation who are quite frustrated with the state of the nation. After the ban, users flooded to P2P platforms same way people started using VPNs a lot after the Twitter ban, this sort of makes the ban irrelevant, so the government allegedly started infiltrating P2P platforms to block accounts of users still using Bitcoin.

A face to face transaction does not really remove the risk involved, the government could still infiltrate it and still block accounts involved.

You are at risk of robbery every time you leave your house, or even if you don't. Every time you shop in public, or use an ATM, or visit the bank, or carry a wallet and phone, etc. Arrange the trade in a well populated area during daytime, maybe even somewhere with CCTV cameras like a large mall or airport. The chances of being robbed there are far smaller than the chances of being robbed when you walk down the street alone at night.

So take the coins you want to trade, pass them through a mixer, and then send them to a fresh address prior to the trade. Now they can't be linked back to your main wallets.

Why would you give away your name? And you can cover your face extremely easily, especially now loads of people are wearing face masks because of COVID.

If that is a concern of yours, then don't trade face to face, and arrange for blind drops or cash in mail to an anonymous PO Box or similar. It's still far more private than trading on any centralized exchange.

In a face to face arrangement, the people don't mind each other's business and therefore, don't ask for personal information. In centralized exchanges, they may require even your blood type.

Note that currencies are meant to be traded/exchanged. Their purpose isn't to only be used as a medium of exchanging goods and services. An example is Forex trading. Some other times, there's need to exchange USD with EUR. (e.g., If you left the US and went to Europe)

There's nothing encrypted in the block chain. That's why we call it transparent.

Face to face trading is risky. Do you bring any security guard to protect you from risk of attacks by your trade partner?

I don't like this idea that contains so many risk. It is the reason for the creation of Escrow service and Peer to peer marketplaces or decentralized exchanges. You don't have to meet another person to finish a trade. If you want to do it, please do it with cash, with fiat, not with Bitcoin.

Do you bring a security guard with you when you use an ATM or go to the bank? Both of those are just as risky as going to a trade - anyone watching knows you have valuable assets on your person. People carry cash and mobile phones and jewellery and car keys. People carry gold in to pawn shops, and walk out of stores carrying laptops and tablets. Carrying some bitcoin or cash to a face to face trade is no more inherently risky than what billions of people are doing every single day.

If you are that concerned about robbery, then trade in daylight in a public place with CCTV as I said above. Bring a friend with you. Bring something for self defense as well if legal in your jurisdiction.

So use a decentralized exchange like Bisq, where you lock up the bitcoins in escrow before you go and meet the other party.

It is not that common on the crypto news, but there are few cases of physical attack that I have read about on crypto news, the last one I read was on cointelegraph last year when a woman that has trusted her client but came to her office all to steal her money and have nothing to offer. It was a successful operation.  If I could get the link I would have posted it here.

Nigeria is not a peaceful country like before, the rate of abduction and fiat for ransom has been on the rise, to the extent even kings and some other leaders are kidnapped and abductors demanding for ransom, not to talk of normal citizens.

I am very sure this will not be a good idea in the country. It is easy to know that Mr A/ Mrs/ Miss A is into crypto, easy to visit him or her and ask him/her of his or her phone and other devices, looking for crypto wallets and release of coins, or his or her life.

I can never go for face-to-face crypto trading in a country that kidnapping has been on the rise which has been due to bad economy.

I read from the link dropped by OP and I saw this.

How exactly do commercial banks know the account of people trading cryptocurrencies?
P2P as used  in centralised exchanges does not expose anyone's details.
Maybe unless the sender puts crypto terminologies in the narration of the bank transfer.  But if they can agree to be making transfers without narrations, I think everyone will be safe.
Again, I read also somewhere that the Nigeria government has implemented thier own digital currency which operates in blockchain.
If this is true, how can they be fighting against what they have embrace?

People are guessing that CBN are having informants on p2p crypto trading platforms to buy and sell cryptocurrencies too in a way to know Nigerians dealing in crypto.

You can check this:
Re: Nigeria (Naija) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5121680.msg58383511#msg58383511)
Nigerian banks tracking customer accounts for crypto trading (https://cointelegraph.com/news/nigerian-banks-tracking-customer-accounts-for-crypto-trading)
Nigeria’s central bank reportedly freezes crypto traders’ accounts (https://cointelegraph.com/news/nigeria-s-central-bank-reportedly-freezes-crypto-traders-accounts)

How can CBN prove blockchain technology was used? But yet said not to be cryptocurrency, I mean eNaira. CBDCs are not cryptocurrencies. Or, did you see any CBDC listed on sites like coinmarketcap or Coingecko? No. They are not cryptocurrencies.

There are exceptions when it comes to kidnapping, but in developed countries this isn't a usual phenomenon. In any way, if you're someone who respects their privacy, then using centralized exchanges contradicts.

Yes, I've read for such incident in the past too, here in Greece. Two guys had arranged to exchange fiat for XLM, one of those went to the bathroom for a while after he had sent the XLM for cash and the buyer (who disappointingly, was young) went in and ripped him off. The victim talked to Binance and fortunately got their XLM back.

I tend to believe the infiltration but how about the legal arrests of users caught in the act of selling or buying BTC? That's what I really wanted to know because it's only a ban issued by the central bank AFAIK which means it shouldn't be a criminal act. I've read about authorities allegedly arresting some people they believed are involved in crypto and extort money but that's illegal.

It doesn't but it still minimizes the risk of bank account closure using the method I mentioned (or at least delay it until you cash out).

I don't know if i am the only one having the impression that the Nigerian government is following the footstep of the Chinese.
1) They stop banks and other payment services from supporting crypto transactions before they create their own CBDC.
2) They now place want to stop the p2p crypto trading.
When things happen like this some enthusiasts can go extra just to achieve their wants but face to face crypto trading is still a No for me.

I did not mean that we must to complicate our trades this way. Multiple choices are available so why do we complicate it with face to face trading? We have much simplier option to do trade and finish it smoothly without any fear of robbery or murder.

This is the best option. Do trades with trade partners on decentralized exchanges like Bisq. Do trades online, peer to peer and saves time (no need for movements from home to trade location) and be safe!

Sort of since they're becoming too hard to their people if it's about bitcoin transactions. We mostly thought that they're going to be that loose on it and will just back up their people.
But it tends to be not and instead of supporting a new means of living of their people, they're making it hard for them.

This is hilarious. How can a government have such a time for that? Leaving many governmental duties to send people to sign up on centralised exchanges in order to hunt people her citizens trading cryptocurrencies.

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Well, I think every problem has a solution. In the P2P platforms, there are ratings of trust due to the volume of fraudless  trades you have performed.
If the government has informants, their informants trade volume will be little, so it can be safe to trade with old reputable members with high volume of accomplished trades.

But of course, privacy should be important to anyone who engages in cryptocurrencies (even in other financial transactions too). Decentralization and anonymity are the core parts of Bitcoin establishment. Anything that contravenes that should be frowned at. I, for one, won't even indulge in a so called face2face trading. What for? That's a bad idea and will expose the person of a hodler and endanger them. It's even enough exposure trading on telegram groups and on other social media sites with bank accounts known, let alone seeing the traders and meeting them in person. Whoever is indulging in that should think twice. It's a bad idea that will surely not end well.

Pretty easy to discover as I said in the other topics about Nigeria.

You check the user who does a lot of transactions to personal accounts, both receiving and sending money with some limits that do this non-stop no matter what day or what hour it is.
How many poeple in that country doing anything other than trading crypto for fiat would do such a thing tens of times in a day? What business could you have to do such a thing, receiving payments after payments from poeple all over the country? Then you link those accounts, then you check their history, 3 queries on a database and you nearly found them all.

It's so easy and so obvious I wonder why poeple really thought they could get away with it especially using a centralized payment solution for that like banks or any other thing.


Yeah, but...
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/06/12/AKqBD.png

The problem is that 95% of the government see decentralization as a threat and limitation of their power because they never want a system where the people won't be under their control that's the reason why some of them are against Bitcoin.

It is the CBN's responsibility, and they have the full time to ensure that cryptocurrency is not traded or used anywhere in the country. The story that the CBN sent agents to the P2P platform may be one of those stories circulating on social media simply because a few people were caught and their accounts were frozen. The CBN agents will begin trade with you and add "crypto" to the translation to flag your account so that the banks can stop it, according to the report. Nobody has been able to corroborate these assertions.

So, if a real user wants to create a p2p trading business, are you saying he should be overlooked because he has 0 or few trade counts? Trading with just reputable people is not a solution, but rather a new obstacle.

The easiest way to identify is through the payment method; if buyer continue to send the last digits of any amount, it raises suspicion. If you open a transaction costing $530 04, it's always a good idea to pay only $530 without the last two digits, as I've learned and advised my colleagues to do.

Government are not against bitcoin, but they don't like something uncontrollable like bitcoin decentralization. I can tell you that there is no compulsion whatsoever to have bitcoin under government control if you don't agree with centralization. So ignore the rule and make transaction with some P2P platform or with some trusted users on this forum to keep you financially private.

Face-to-face transaction involving bitcoin and other digital asset are very risky if they are carried out in large amount. There have been case where someone was robbed before for making face-to-face transaction, I wouldn't do it without someone else's supervision or never touch it.

You're saying two different things. You claim governments are only against decentralization which I agreed but they are automatically against Bitcoin because decentralization is the foundation of Bitcoin. Therefore, I am not wrong when I said they are against Bitcoin and I don't know why they cannot for once appreciate the technology that unites people around the world despite the race and language differences.


Face to face cryptocurrency transaction is dangerous even it is not a large amount.

Because face to face trading is more final and also more private than many other methods. If I'm trading with a brand new partner, maybe I don't want to use something like a bank transfer which can be reversed if the other party phones their bank and claims they were hacked. With cash, there is no chance for chargebacks, reversals, or similar. Further, any electronic method of transferring fiat still requires a name and account number be transferred to the other party - perhaps I don't want to do that.

There are pros and cons to every method. If you personally don't want to trade face to face, then that's absolutely fine, but there are thousands of people who do, and do so regularly, without any issues.

Check out this article just released last week. This is why you should not do F2F trades with a stranger, unless it's just a small about to buy small goods

https://beincrypto.com/crypto-trader-kidnapped-tortured-ransom/ (https://beincrypto.com/crypto-trader-kidnapped-tortured-ransom/)

Let's take a look at the three incidents discussed in the article:


Every single one made a very basic mistake of not trading in a public place. If someone asks you to go somewhere with them, be in to a building, an office, a warehouse, a vehicle, whatever, then it's because they want to do something there that they don't want to do in public. There is no scenario in which that turns out well for you, and is a massive red flag which should lead to you immediately walking away from the trade.

Bisq have a nice guide on face to face trading here: https://bisq.wiki/Face-to-face_(payment_method)#Meeting_your_trading_partner. If you follow all these steps, the chances of something going wrong is very small.

Well, that's not really safe that's why I do trade only with our local exchange even if the rate is lower compared to the standard rate. There's always a risk when trading face to face as you never know if the person you are transacting with is true to his intention, who knows, he might be planning something bad for you or might tell other people about you.

That's why we have an exchange that follows the same policy with the banks which is to protect our privacy.

Most of people is condemning face to face bitcoin transaction, at least at of hundred percent  (%100) or seventy five percent (%75) is against face to face transaction. But i have done it severally far back when i have not even had the pre-knowledge of the forum, and this happened in year 2015 when out hundred people living in a region is only ten percent knows what is bitcoin, then it was moving smoothly without any problem even government then in my country is not against bitcoin because bitcoin was not officially known like now, then before you see someone that will buy bitcoin from you is very difficult, then it wasn't risk to sell bitcoin face to face, you will even enjoy the transaction because your physically cash been fiat will be issued to you before the transaction will kick off.

The government making new regulations gave them a hard time to trade since it might cost more money to trade with their local exchange that's why crypto community in Nigeria created a new way to lessen the struggle by putting some physical shops/kiosks so that the F2F trading would be possible.

As for the risk of trading physically/face-to-face there are guidelines out there on how to avoid or minimize the risk of getting mobbed. And also, I like the idea of having physical shops exclusive for crypto users only and it should be guarded with a SG or police just like how the banks did it.

Trading Bitcoin and using Bitcoin for your needs is quite a different scenario. Trading Bitcoin for cash face to face is quite risky. I heard a story in my country, one of my known persons was blackmailed when he went to trade Bitcoin face to face. All the fund was taken by the so-called peer gang. Also, the seller couldn't file a police case because Bitcoin isn't legal in my country. There would happen more issues if trading Bitcoin face to face. But definitely, you can use Bitcoin for needs like shopping or a coffee shop. There shouldn't be any problem. So yes, I discourage trading Bitcoin face to face.

Cryptocurrency is illegal in the county, and you're advocating that people create a safe environment for face-to-face transactions supervised by the cops? (Government) Having a crypto-related app on your phone is a serious crime in Nigeria right now; there have been reports in the media of some young people being detained for having the Binance app on their phones..

Also, if you're at risk of being assassinated or abducted, especially in third-world nations where insecurity is high, it's best to trade face-to-face with some close friends rather than strangers you don't know. Unless you care more about money than your life, I wouldn't recommend becoming engaged in f2f.