Bitcoin Forum

CENTRALIZED P2P UNDER GOVERNMENTS THREAT, IT'S TIME TO EMBRACE THE USE OF DECENTRALIZED EXCHANGES P2P.


My aim for creating this thread is to help us identify the differences we have from using a decentralized exchange p2p from a centralized one, their implications as well as the benefits that includes their uses and why government regulations and ban on centralized exchanges p2p is not the only hope for us.

1. Are you having challenges with government regulations on the use of centralized exchanges for p2p, then I think this thread is best for you.

2. Do you care about your informations provided on exchanges and want to avoid KYC, then this also is for you.

3. Have you realized that you needed privacy and a platform that can be rest assured for your trades and exchange of cryptocurrencies, then you needs a decentralized exchange p2p for that.

It's no more new to us that centralized exchanges comprises a number of cryptocurrencies in which we cannot mention all in their number and many chooses to use them for their trades (p2p) the most, whereas decentralized exchange were being selective in number of crypto coins you could find in them and you may not have to bother on KYC before using a decentralized exchange.

THE CHALLENGES

If we look into considering what centralized exchanges are passing through of recent, we will get discouraged because the attacks aren't on them alone, but as well to victimized their users by governments, you can check for this quick recap on what some of the centralized exchanges are facing with specific countries and the government regulations.

IN UNITED STATES

The centralized exchange Binance is banned, you can read more on that https://thesmallbusinessblog.net/why-is-binance-banned-in-the-us/

IN CANADA

You can read more about the list of banned centralized crypto exchanges https://rankfi.com/ca/banned-crypto-exchanges-canada/

IN NIGERIA

Binance, OKX and Kucoin exchanges ban crypto p2p
https://techpoint.africa/2024/05/15/kucoin-temporarily-suspends-p2p-naira/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/coingape.com/binance-other-crypto-firms-faces-ban-nigeria-here-why/amp/

IN INDIA

Some exchanges were banned and some were not, check on their list here
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/in/investing/cryptocurrency/india-fiu-ban-impact-on-crypto-investment/#:~:text=Cryptocurrency%20exchanges%20like%20Binance%2C%20Kraken,the%20PML%20Act%20in%20India.

This is just to mention but few among the countries where crypto ban on centralized exchanges p2p have been once experienced, China and Iran were not left out together with many other countries having major ban either on crypto or exchanges p2p.

LIST OF COUNTRIES THAT HAVE BANNED BINANCE EXCHANGE P2P

Consideration is giving on Binance in this case because it's the leading and world most recognized biggest crypto centralized exchange.
https://www.nairaland.com/8018122/countries-where-binance-banned-restricted

WHY THE NEED FOR DECENTRALIZED EXCHANGES

1. We needs privacy
2. We are tired of KYC
3. We need to be free from government regulations on centralized exchanges
4. We needed a platform that guarantees for the use of p2p like the decentralized exchanges
5. Centralized exchanges constitutes of shitcoins sometimes or mostly.

DECENTRALIZED EXCHANGES

Most Recommended
https://bisq.network/

(Edited) HodlHold is centralized
https://hodlhodl.com/

Other Decentralized Exchanges

Warning! You may have to DYOR before using anyone on this category, some of them still uses central serve, check their list here.
https://www.alchemy.com/best/decentralized-exchanges-dexs

As governments are threatening on the use of P2P on centralized exchange, we should remember that decentralized exchanges p2p can give us the best experience in achieving our desired expectations from using them, we can afford the use of VPN or Tor in in achieving their usage.

Decentralized p2p exchanges is best where crypto is banned or restricted by the banks and for anyone who seeks ultimate privacy but the main problem with p2p is chargebacks and funds received from hacked bank accounts, PayPal, credit cards, and any payment mode and fiat is the one will be frozen if we are talking about crypto to fiat p2p platforms so if it centralized then we can at least make sure the trader we deal with have the reputation of such while truly decentralized which is uncertain for sure.

Another thing is less liquidity and premium rates and that's what we need to pay if we seek ultimate privacy.

but with the increasing number of people using decentralized exchanges, this will be a reason for the government to seize and terminate these websites on the grounds that these exchanges operate in a non-transparent manner and are prone to money laundering. it's the same as mixers, which were not initially banned by the government, but with the increasing number of people using them to launder money, the government made it an illegal service. i'm not against decentralized exchanges, but i'm just saying that the potential that with the increasing number of users means that decentralized exchanges will become targets for tough action from the government.

Has a P2P exchanges war really started? I thought the government was tracking mixers or any tool used to enhance privacy, not P2P exchanges, as some of these services are still working.

if the government decides to consider them illegal, they will most likely arrest the developers, so the developers must be anonymous and use code hosting services away from GitHub. Then managing an entire node or all of the communication through Tor, and the problem that is always repeated will be liquidity.

Hodlhodl isn't even a decentralized exchange, even worst they might ask to submit KYC, people should avoid to use hodlhodl if they want privacy.

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These all aren't decentralized exchanges, they're P2P service that connected to centralized server, the only decentralized exchange is Bisq, the rest are centralized. Bisq users don't need to worry if the government ban the sites, as long as people already download and installed the exchanges, no one can't shut down the server except there's no internet connection.

It's misleading, better to check the exchanges on kycnot.me

In Nigeria, Yes, P2P exchanges war has started. Binance, Kucoin, OKX are gone. We may wake up one day to the other P2P exchanges joining them.

• Binance to stop services in Nigerian Naira amid crackdown on crypto exchanges (https://www.reuters.com/technology/binance-stop-services-nigerian-naira-amid-crackdown-crypto-exchanges-2024-03-05/)
• KuCoin pauses P2P trading in Nigeria amidst regulatory concerns (https://www.mariblock.com/kucoin-pauses-p2p-trading-in-nigeria-amidst-regulatory-concerns/#:~:text=The%20KuCoin%20suspension%20comes%20after,total%20ban%20on%20P2P%20trading.&text=KuCoin%2C%20the%20global%20cryptocurrency%20company,buy%20services%20via%20naira%20card.)

My country's leadership is yet to catch up with what mixers are. They still blame the centralized exchanges for the falling and failing economy. I know when they learn about mixers then they'll put out a press release on them.

It is a crazy country we live in but what a time to be alive.

I can remember that kycnot.me included Kucoin, Agoradesk, Localmonero and many other centralized exchanges. Many centralized exchanges are claiming that they are decentralized but they are centralized.

Some people even think exch.cx is decentralized which is also included on kycnot.me but that is not true, it is an instant exchange and it is centralized. Only very few exchanges are making use of nodes instead of central server. A good example of decentralized exchange is Bisq.network that does not depend on a central server while most other exchanges are centralized or have a bit of centralization.

People should not get it wrong. kycnot.me means exchanges that does not require KYC and not exchanges that are decentralized.

Should we say they wouldn’t stop at nothing to actually get bitcoin or cryptocurrency at large under their control, they have basically moved from banning to restrictions and vice versa. They started with mining rig banning, moved to mixers and now I think they are banning P2P trading on centralized exchanges.

The economy of most countries are looking bad mostly due to inflation of goods and even the countries currency. Nigeria to be precise blame P2P traders as those manipulating its currency (Naira) against international currencies and making it devalued and as such are after every know exchange offering P2P.

To me centralized exchanges are even the easiest way that government can get anything related to control over P2P trading but they are negligent of it. Many people will move to DEX which are more hard to track than Centralized exchanges that they can easily get some informations from if they regulate them and also tax them



The problem was that Kycnot.me did included this centralized exchanges at first as decentralized exchanges mainly because they didn’t require KYC then to trade on them. This exchanges moved on over to getting people verify their KYC example is KuCoin but the site (kycnot.me) didn’t update the site for a while. The developer of the site had to come down here to clarify that.

I Can’t seem to find his post again. Will update the link if I do

Here is the post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5458584.msg62679538#msg62679538 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5458584.msg62679538#msg62679538)

I guess you people that have banning of P2P exchanges that are centralized in mind are from Nigeria. What most countries want is KYC. If you abide to the laws and policies of the country and tell your customers to do KYC, you will have no problem with the government if cryptocurrencies are legal in your country. But Nigeria is different as the government do not understand how to manage the economy. Nigeria is one of the worst country that do not understand the impact of P2P and how it can help them to generate income.

This link you provided is old because I can see the site has been updated. There are still centralized exchanges on the site but no requiring KYC. The site is about no KYC exchanges and not decentralized exchanges. Decentralized exchanges require no KYC which is the reason you also see them among.

Exactly, the other country government have actually thought of a way out of getting crypto traders under control and most of this countries government had to settle for centralized exchanges must make sure their customers under go compulsory KYC verification and then if they regulate them they will be able to get a little information of the country trades and also tax them example is India. When Nigeria government invited had did had talks with binance Africa officials I thought this was going to be their way out too, but they went the other way


That post was done when some other centralized exchanges were still there and after the update some like KuCoin were filtered out. Maybe it is now taking a long time again that they updated it and most of the DEX then have moved to become CEX.

 ;D A country that has failed to meet up to standard of the other countries you also listed here still puts a ban on p2p. The government here knows what p2p entails, but their negative action towards it is simply because they lack ideas on how to generate revenue or should I say task from it.

Since the coming of this administration, task generation has been an important agenda which they've failed to applied in the area of crypto, but choose to shut it down. What makes this interesting is that many Bitcoin ethusiasts from this country are far smarter than the government, thereby developing other means(but not easy) to do their trade.


Exactly my point. The government understand how beneficial p2p is to the citizens, but their attempt to generate revenue from it has failed couple of times  ;D. No offence, but I think the country is currently in a state of m*ss, as their highest bill (N1000) can't even compete with the US lowest ($1).

Let's not be too political, DEX should be the people's choice.

The decentralized exchanges did not become centralized exchanges, they are centralized before. If they call themselves decentralized exchanges, make research yourself to know if it is true or not true. Just like I have said before, the site is KYCnotme, it is about exchanges that needs no KYC to access. If Kucoin did not make their customers to get verified, the exchange will still be there but with average rating.

True Non-kyc exchanges don't necessarily needs to be DEX, at that time Kucoin required KYC for p2p around 1Btc and above, if I remember correctly.

Actually they're blinded because of their greed from the fact that they're hoping to able to fine these exchanges especially binance which they actually attempted to fine $10billion https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68762553

The fight against mixers is only predominant in US, the government in some countries from the examples made have already been fighting against exchanges to stop the p2p service of their local currency with other foreign currencies like the USD and the likes, also, some exchanges were banned already and inaccessible in some countries still within the examples of the countries involved as mentioned, while all these were indirect aggression on their fight against bitcoin and economy instability, coupled with their mentality that crypto is used for fraudulent activities.


That is true, thank you for the observation, i will take note on that, which means, hodl hodl can only be regarded as a No KYC centralized exchange and not a decentralized exchange or since we cannot be sure on them requesting for KYC later in future, i think it's better they just fall under a centralized exchange, whether they request for KYC or not.

As for Nigerian government yes!
They have look for ways to restrict Nigerians to trade p2p in centralized exchanges like Binance, OKX, and KuCoin exchanges; they are doing all these just to strengthen our Naira currency which I think is not the best solution for them because even the official rate is not regulated not to talk of the official market.

If Decentralized exchanges will have enough liquidity, then it will be better since the government will not have easy access to regulate the affairs of p2p because centralization is what is given them the power to interrogate these exchanges to block Nigerians from accessing p2p within Nigerians.

I know centralized exchanges start with their 'centralized' exchange platforms first, then they create their Peer to Peer platforms for users, then Web3 wallets.

It is hard to believe that they give us truly P2P platform to use, and most of them require KYC to use P2P services too.

With their Web3 wallets, it's hard to believe that your privacy will be protected because their Web3 wallets are closed source, not open source.

Help: A list of LocalBitcoin alternatives (P2P marketplaces) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5224711.0).
LeGaulois did not update it since 2021 and some P2P marketplaces closed their services already like https://localcryptos.com/ and https://localbitcoins.com/

The government is only fine a way of stressing the people's if not waiting concerned him with the p2p again, or may he don't want to see the centralized exist, which is why he is looking for a way to ban all the centralized. When the federal government was talking about Binance, people were taking it as a guarantee and making it possible, and he's now trying to come back to OKX, and Kucoin government doesn't know that is our naira currency is trying to strengthen.

But it won't know the advantage of all this now until the future if not going to banned them. What can make a country to develop since the government's aims have been achieved? Let us wait for his next target.

There are not many real decentralized exchanges available today, Bisq is one of them but fees can be higher and it can be slower for people who are using it for the first time.
Recently there was for of Bisq called Haveno dex that is based on monero for more privacy and lower fees, but it is still in early stages.
Few more decentralized exchanges I know are Basicswapdex.com and Blockdx.net but they don't offer fiat/cash trading.
For P2P exchanges there are more options, but they are not decentralized, for example PeachBitcoin app, Robosats, lnp2pbot, NoOnes, etc.

In as much as this crack down on centralized P2P exchange by government is gradually effecting crypto enthusiasts to carry out their transactions in these affected countries, well, In the order hands ,I kind of think Decentralised exchange will take advantage of this very situation and we might see a rise of more Decentralised P2P exchange in the near future, sometimes we fail to look at positive impact of certain situations on ground.

Op, I don't think regulation of these centralised exchanges is a bad one, besides their activities still needs to be put on check because of how they will treat their clients. However, the way that Nigerian government is going about this stuff isn't gonna be the lasting solution to the problem and in order to strengthen their currency, they should come in agreement with these exchanges and find a way of taxing its citizens involved in crypto, this way they will generate huge amount of revenue than shutting down the centralized P2P exchange.

Very few countries are experiencing ban or restrictions on p2p transactions on exchanges but however I don't see why we should be concerned when government are clamping down on exchanges since we are seeking for adoption of cryptocurrencies and I believe the reasons why we need centralized exchanges is just to convert cryptos to fiat which is not a very good practice but however the reasons why we just acknowledge exchanges is due to the fact that crypto adoption hasn't gotten to a level where we can comfortably offer to use cryptos on real life transactions because only few organizations and individuals does their businesses using cryptocurrency.

However, I just see those countries clamping down on centralized exchanges as those who ain't in support of cryptocurrency, reason being that they either see it as what will degrade the use of fiat that has been a major currency over the years and since cryptocurrency are decentralized and in opposition with CBDC makes it difficult for some government to accept since they always want to be in control of every monetary affairs of country and to also impose regulatory policies and taxes.

Agreed, centralized exchange's put their business interests first and its understandable...but can a Dex compete with a CeX in terms of interoperability & efficiency, I don't think so.

I know we are trying to avoid the bureaucracy and government control of these exchanges, but but can the DeXs we have handle the traffic that CeX p2p handle, and because so much resources go into maintaining and running of such a platform...do we have Devs ready to invest the resources to come up with such a platform that's not restricted to a few blockchains and guarantee safety of our crypto assets...I don't think so tbh. But with more exchanges being clamped down, I think we don't have a choice but to respond by going back to where it all started from...

You're right and I got your idea from here, we have only few decentralized exchanges, among the few, some of them do not offer for the service of p2p trading for local currencies isn't allowed in them, this is really going to be a major concern later in future because if paraventure everyone tends to do away with the centralized exchanges due to governments regulations, what other platforms are we going to have for the use of P2P trading in exchanging our crypto to fiat or fiat to buy crypto, it's better we begin to have as many as possible decentralized exchanges like bisq, which could serve on diverse purpose to the standard and taste of many traders and CEX users.

So now the new target of the government is centralized p2p exchanges where users can easily convert their crypto to fiat and fiat to crypto.

They are somehow trying to make such conversions harder and I believe they are doing it so crypto users may not be able to convert their crypto to fiat and fiat to crypto.

If decentralized p2p exchanges are working then that's a good sign, but still a question arises that for how long those decentralized exchanges will be safe from the government?

I think if in a country centralized p2p exchanges are under attack then in that country decentralized p2p exchanges are also at very high risk.

Why do you consider Robosats as not decentralized exchange? Since January 2024, it works in a DEX mode.

The DEX is available at two addresses:
http://dex.robosats.com/ - with limited functionality,
http://robodexarjwtfryec556cjdz3dfa7u47saek6lkftnkgshvgg2kcumqd.onion/ - with full functionality.

Each user can take on three roles:
1. Maker - the one who publishes an order (exchange request),
2. Taker - the one who accepts an order,
3. Coordinator - the one through whose Lightning Network node the exchange is conducted.

All you need to become a maker or taker is a few sats in your Lightning Network wallet. Yes, even the recipient of sats must have some to pay the insurance bond for publishing or accepting an order. The bond is needed to avoid fake orders and fake responses. It is returned after the successful completion of the trade or after the cancellation of an order that no one responded to. However, if you back out of a trade that has already started (when the order has both a maker and a taker), the bond is not returned. Part of it goes to the other party, and the other part goes to the coordinator.

To become a coordinator, you need to have your own full Lightning Network node. Insurance deposits and the exchanged sats are sent to this node. The coordinator cannot seize these funds (the invoices they receive only allow them to manage the sats according to the specified scenarios). However, the coordinator can act as an arbitrator in a dispute: if the two parties involved in the trade cannot agree on whether all obligations have been met and the sats should be transferred to the recipient, the final decision will be made by the coordinator.

Coordinators can set a fee for their mediation. This fee is paid from the exchanged amount (a portion of it remains on the coordinator's node). Different coordinators may charge different fees.

Exchanging on the DEX requires trust in the coordinator. A coordinator who colludes with one party can leave the other party without Bitcoins and without fiat currency.

The coordinator for a transaction is chosen by the maker. If a potential taker does not trust the coordinator specified in the order, they should find an order with a different coordinator or publish their own order.

Decentralization lies in the fact that the RoboSats team retains only the functions of supporting and developing the protocol. Its source code is open, and anyone can launch their own platform on any server. The protocol provides for information exchange between coordinators. As a result, each coordinator has information about the status of all orders in the system. A new server only needs to connect to any coordinator, after which it can receive information about all available orders and coordinators, create new orders, and respond to them.

If desired, the system can also be used to exchange bitcoins for other cryptocurrencies.

Centralized P2P exchanges are nowhere near their Target range for sure because they all KYCed so this will be their last point of concern logically speaking. We expects the privacy which is a choice on our own and for that using Bisq or whatever decentralised P2P exchanges available but we need to understand government is not really trying to ban because they realised it's not possible so they are trying to centralized it as much as possible and take control of it.

Some, just like you said... Yunno what? The reality is far from what it looks like to you; most countries have taken the censorships really personal as they're basically out to extract documentations of people's private information, through KYCs.. Imagine being asked to release every user's data that has a link with their local bank? Crazy right?

You clearly have no idea about what you just said. Decentralization has never, and will never be leaked or broken. How do you charge a case on anonymous exchanges?

I had some idea about it and I believe that's why I said that. When a country's government attack p2p centralized exchanges then that country's government tries their best to attack the decentralized p2p exchanges as well. I know that such attack isn't going to be a direct attack because it would be much tough for them to directly attack decentralized exchange p2p users as they can't do that directly.

The users who complete p2p transactions on decentralized exchanges also have to use banks in order to complete the fiat based p2p transactions and in such case banks could monitor the bank accounts or digital banking accounts of those p2p merchants and if they see suspicious transactions then they may freeze the accounts of the merchants who do p2p transactions on decentralized exchanges.

It would be much hard for the government's to track p2p crypto transactions but p2p crypto to fiat and fiat to crypto transactions can be tracked to some extent. Even sometimes in order to do that, government's can have their accounts set as merchants and whoever does p2p trading with them they track their accounts and take actions against those in stealth mode first and then some kind of direct actions.

Two of the Binance staff were arrested in Nigeria for manipulating the fiat currency below dollar. Binance vendors were inflation the dollar very high against the dollar in their exchange. And causing inflation in stock exchange so the government called two of the Binance staff to go and explained but they couldn't give good explanation so the two were arrested and one escaped. So Binance p2p in the country has been stopped and this extended to other centralized exchanges and most of the centralized exchanges have delisted the p2p in the country as the government directed them to do so.

And today being the 6th day of June, 16 US lawyers appeal to President Biden to intervene for the arrest of the US citizen Tigran Gambaryan by Nigerian government for the manipulation of the local currency in their website (exchange). And the 16 US lawmakers said, Nigerian government hold their citizen hostage. And I think that should be a legal battle.
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/06/06/cGI2N.jpeg

So presently we only have few CeX (two), bitget and ByBit which are the most popular ones for now. And according to rumor those two will also be stopped. So we have the option for the real p2p which should be one on one or I know the person.