Bitcoin Forum

Just received a email

We are therefore sad to share, that regardless of our efforts to overcome challenges during the ongoing very cold crypto-winter, we have regretfully concluded that LocalBitcoins can no longer provide its Bitcoin trading service.

Any one knows the reason?

They started as a no KYC option and users were happy to pay 1% for that (on top of vendors rate). Forced KYC is what ruined them. Why pay such high fees when you can go on Binance and pay less?

You're late, this is already an old news and we already got few topics created on this.

Its not due to crypto winter, but because they cant serve their customers properly :) Otherwise, there are exchanges who shine stronger after the crypto winter lol. Ah well, who knows if crypto winter ends here with them closing down ? That should be a perfect punch in the face.

Right, and btw you dont pay any fee for p2p trades on binance. Its completely free.

---

@OP, you should move this to exchanges board.

LocalBitcoins didn't just shut down overnight. It was a slow and steady process that had to do with legal and regulatory issues. They started putting the brakes on their services in some areas, like in Germany where they stopped offering services to users in 2019. They also pulled the plug in some parts of the USA, like New York and Washington State, because they didn't have the right licenses.

Basically, they had to adapt to new rules and laws as they came up, and that meant they had to cut back on their services in some areas. In my opinion, it was the combination of regulatory pressure and the recent decline in cryptocurrency values that led to its downfall.

No one was willing to use P2P in btc to be frank since LBTC was charging good amount of btc while doing p2p transactions .

If you have your account on LocalBitcoins and want to have trading statistics imported to your Paxful account, this article tells you how.

Import your LocalBitcoins account stats to Paxful (https://paxful.com/university/import-your-localbitcoins-account/)

You won't have to start your account from zero and can import your reputation from LocalBitcoins to Paxful account. Paxful has KYC.

Thanks to all for reply.
This KYC trend makes me upset. But at the same time I am not surprised.
The more popular bitcoin becomes the more gov will try to regulate it.
I never faced with p2p trading so i guess it's time to try this technology.

I was using localbitcoins to buy  BTC anonymously.

Hell, I wasn't even able to transfer my reputation from Localbitcoins to Localcryptos (which is also now discontinued) because I have to first do KYC verification in order to access my account  ;D

In the end, I realized the reputation wasn't worth my KYC documents and abandoned them for good.

Although I am not a criminal this KYC procedures make me sick.
Don't know why.

You can use a new platform "MySecure".

It's the most secure non-custodial P2P Bitcoin exchange platform.

There you can buy and sell Bitcoins Worldwide.

Using payment method. Any currency. And No KYC there!

https://mysecure.world

There are other ways to connect one account to the other, one of those would be the address they're sending from. Another one is your website can check for cookies or whatever and see if user has been previously registered and so on. Talk to a web developer.

You can say good or bad things about LocalBitcoins but this is the perfect example how a crypto service should close it's doors. Cascade of warning and full payout. 10 years with full reserve. We miss it nowadays.

Here are some exchanges without KYC https://kycnot.me, you may be able to adopt their business model.
Some people are okay with KYC and some arent because it is against the concept of decentralization, skepticism about data leaks, etc. After all, not all who care about privacy are scammers.

Multiaccounting and scamming aren't exactly the same thing. But if you meant fraud when you said scamming, then it's easy to stop that with KYC. Almost impossible without it, unless you are restricted to trading cryptocurrency pairs using a "dumbed down" smart contract.

There will always be fraud associated with crypto-to-fiat and vice versa exchanges though, because you can always just rob the buyer or seller.

Multiaccounting is pretty easy to stop without KYC though. Just make all users verify with their phone number and check their GPS location to make sure that all accounts are created in the same place.

Any username can be made worthwile, so valuable that you don't want to loose it. Takes time though.

Not exactly a 10-year service, but I still prefer how localcryptos closed their doors. They refused to bow down to the KYC bullshit.

Try checking out how bisq or localcryptos operate/operated.

I had my KYC done there . What do you think will happen to the KYC documents there ?

Local Cryptos never required KYC. Some sellers however required sending IDs but that's outside LC's control.

If we're talking about localbitcoins, they're gdpr compliant so hopefully the conditions are better but at the end of the day, there's no way for us to confirm - we'll never know.

You probably did it because it was a prerequisite by your trade partner, but KYC was never a requirement to sign up and use localcryptos. In their terms of use (https://localcryptos.com/terms/terms-of-use) and service terms (https://localcryptos.com/terms/service-terms), they never maentioned anything like KYC or AML

Nobody knows… try checking out their privacy policy (https://localcryptos.com/terms/privacy-policy). You might get a clue