Localbitcoins now requires identification

[TheQuin]

I have built up a "trusted" network of friends for these Peer-to-peer trades over time and I can even trade with them, without using escrow services, but newbies will unfortunately not have that privilege. 

It could end up making the currency exchange board on this forum far more active.

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[glowing10]

The unfortunate side of this is that people will have to turn to the more shady platforms to trade <Peer-to-peer> anonymously.    You can still use these platforms for smaller trades, but it is risky in countries where Bitcoin is being "banned". <Like we saw happening when China temporarily closed the Bitcoin exchanges>

I have built up a "trusted" network of friends for these Peer-to-peer trades over time and I can even trade with them, without using escrow services, but newbies will unfortunately not have that privilege. 

With this policy I think people will move away form localbitcoin slowly and steadily and will start using some other exchange or their is a huge scope for something like localbitcoin to come up and capture the market easily. So the market is now wide open for new players to eneter in this space.

[magneto]

The unfortunate side of this is that people will have to turn to the more shady platforms to trade <Peer-to-peer> anonymously.    You can still use these platforms for smaller trades, but it is risky in countries where Bitcoin is being "banned". <Like we saw happening when China temporarily closed the Bitcoin exchanges>

I have built up a "trusted" network of friends for these Peer-to-peer trades over time and I can even trade with them, without using escrow services, but newbies will unfortunately not have that privilege. 

Yes, there are definitely shadier alternatives that I'd rather not use, but people may be forced into using. A lot of current casual buyers/sellers may also have to turn to centralised exchanger services with no escrow protection, which is a big concern.

For whoever that doesn't know yet, Localbitcoins gave out an entirely new and updated terms and conditions a few days back as well: https://localbitcoins.com/gdpr

These restrictions don't really affect newbies yet, though. They still have a chance to trade without significant volume. Although key word is *yet*. We don't know if Localbitcoins is going to follow current guidelines forever.