Localbitcoins removes face to face cash trades

[paxfulerich]

Hi All,

Paxful still supports cash trading. If you have a profile on LocalBitcoins I can help you port your trading statistics over!

[Haunebu]

I don't think it's going to affect many people.

True. People are making a big deal out of nothing in this case. Majority of the transactions on LBC are most likely done online anyway which is why this does not really bother. Personally, I haven't completed a single transaction offline so far.

When you're dealing with a person with cash face to face you need a lot of trust and people who dealt over long periods of times over LB already know each other and have ways of contacting and dealing outside lb. The escrow is gone but if this is when trust plays a major role.

It will still be really risky. This is money and people do crazy things for money which is why I would the no escrow option screws the minority portion who are dependent on face to face transactions royally.

[cabron]

I guess the local section in this forum will be often used by now to request for meet up and buying cash and face to face. This isn't the safest but still works to avoid the KYC which most services require. I haven't done this before though. Is buying bitcoin outside these services legal or should be expect some agents pretending to be some buyers to get us busted?

[figmentofmyass]

I guess the local section in this forum will be often used by now to request for meet up and buying cash and face to face. This isn't the safest but still works to avoid the KYC which most services require. I haven't done this before though. Is buying bitcoin outside these services legal or should be expect some agents pretending to be some buyers to get us busted?

if any platform gets big enough (lots of traders, high volumes) it will attract the attention of law enforcement. that's why undercover cops have been operating on localbitcoins for years already. in most jurisdictions, there's nothing illegal about buying/selling bitcoin. the legal problems arise if you operate a business exchange bitcoins without registering as an MSB and complying with AML/KYC laws.

not many listings for cash here on the forums either. slim pickings these days!

[Ryan Dugan]

I knew eventually they would shut down the meet and trade thing. Honestly, I was surprised it was even there meeting to trade lots of money worth of bitcoins looks dodgy I guess. I wouldn't want to deal with all that money like that. Then if not safety the money laundering thing. I'm not really surprised but I am surprised it remained for so long.

Crypto is privately issued anyway so government must go play with their fiat. There is nothing they can do. Nothing.

[Kakmakr]

We need a decentralized solution that cannot be taken down, even if they wanted to. Bitcoin's success is due to it's decentralized technology that prevents governments from stopping these technologies, so it is a natural evolution that the supporting technologies must also be decentralized. <Like what is happening with decentralized exchanges> 

We saw how important person to person trades became, when countries like China started to put pressure on local exchanges to close their doors and people had to turn to services like Localbitcoin to buy and sell coins. 

[stompix]

When you're dealing with a person with cash face to face you need a lot of trust and people who dealt over long periods of times over LB already know each other and have ways of contacting and dealing outside lb. The escrow is gone but if this is when trust plays a major role.

It will still be really risky. This is money and people do crazy things for money which is why I would the no escrow option screws the minority portion who are dependent on face to face transactions royally.

If you already know the guy and the guy knows that you have all his details he will probably not try to rob you.
Also, people who have been long in the game know you never deal 500k in cash without the risk.
Even with the escrow, you run the risk of getting robbed, the thief accessing your account and releasing it, for 100-500k, some might be tempted, for 1k-2k? Probably one in a million.

Crypto is privately issued anyway so government must go play with their fiat. There is nothing they can do. Nothing.

You know nothing Jon Snow Ryan Dugan 
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=934268.0

[jak3]

And here goes another example of what can government do. No matter they are the rulers they will do anything for their profit even stop a free digital coin and maybe even finish it. I Remember localbitcoin was the first place on the internet where I redeem my first digital coins into a bank account and now this.

[||bit]

This means localbitcoins is no more. Who would use them if no possibility of face to face cash trades?

They are forced to make this decision and even it was suicide for themselves. It seems alarming that governments can block two people exchange things without a middleman. I can understand why they want to block such a thing but i can't understand how can they be successful doing this.

[Ucy]

Hard time for digital nomads and people whose bank accounts are frozen in lawless places



Well. localbitcoin is a Centralized company, what do you expect? Worst things could be introduced in the future.

The govts will always win on Centralized platforms no matter what. You could still ask your buyer via message for one-on one transaction...  he/she maybe interested


Few decentralized exchanges probably do one-on-one transactions: Bisq and LocalEthereum... not sure though

[akamit]

Recently 3 students from Bangladesh got arrested for trading in bitcoin and this is how the Police of Bangladesh had trapped them. So I am glad that it has been stopped!

Are you referring to this incident? 3 arrested in Bangladesh for merely trading Bitcoin

If so, then those 3 persons were arrested because of running an illegal exchanger and some users may have complained to police because they were scammed by that exchanger. That's what I heard about the case and the exchanger has been seized by Bogra Cyber Police.

It's not like that those 3 persons were a student and doing trading online but the case is different.

[Wind_FURY]

Oh well, i dont think its that bad, face to face trades arent too safe and regulation is needed eventually.

Isn't it up to the users of LBC themselves to figure out what's safe and what isn't? I mean, sure, it's not the safest option to use, but it certainly is an effective option when you meet up in crowded areas.

I know of enough face to face trades that have gone well because the right measures have been taken. It's impossible to eliminate the risk of facing an ill minded individual, but that's the risk you're willing to take in that case.

I am sure that the government is behind this with their silly regulations. They want to narrow down people's options when it comes to dealing in a peer to peer manner. This might dent the local market for a while, but that's about it.

Definitely, this just hurts the local scenes, I am guessing people will start using alternatives like Facebook marketplace or their local Craigslist and alternatives until a true competitor arrives to replace the original function.

It does. But long time users should have already forged good, and trustworthy relationships by now, which what everyone should be doing in their own local communities.

You can also trade in person decentrally with BISQ, https://docs.bisq.network/trading-rules.html

[eternalgloom]

Yeah, this is pretty bad news, I did quite a lot of OTC trades on there, but luckily this won't affect me personally.
I got contact details of the people who I did those trades with and can still meet up with them.

Really sucks for other people though.

[bbc.reporter]

Yes, Localbitcoins has closed it's door to physical trades and I am happy that it happened. Polices all around the world are using this feature to catch people who are dealing on bitcoin. Recently 3 students from Bangladesh got arrested for trading in bitcoin and this is how the Police of Bangladesh had trapped them. So I am glad that it has been stopped! It was well assumed that governments will be pushing such kind of p2p platforms to comply with KYC norms someday or later, that was well envisaged!

I don't have any issues in complying with KYC if the government wants to. Achieving absolute privacy is not possible anywhere in the world unless dark web is used! However, to accelerate the adoption of bitcoin and other cryptos, it needs to be regulated at some point of time. This way we can ensure fairer transactions and less chance of fraud. That's the reason why I always prefer to have trades with only 2-3 traders over and over again!

How easy is it for some to be manipulated by the government's use of fear and deception.

Also, you want bitcoin to be regulated under the present laws? I reckon more of your Bangladeshi friends might be arrested.

[krb91]

Face to face cash trading of cryptocurrencies is one of the most dangerous ideas to invade the blockchain space in terms of security and anonymity. The risks greatly outweigh the benefits, I am glad it has been removed because it exxposes the parties involved with a lot of security risks.

[LeGaulois]

Face to face cash trading of cryptocurrencies is one of the most dangerous ideas to invade the blockchain space in terms of security and anonymity. The risks greatly outweigh the benefits, I am glad it has been removed because it exxposes the parties involved with a lot of security risks.

That's stupid, why trading face to face with someone with is a 'dangerous' invasion for the Blockchain
Anonymity? It's one of the best ways when talking about anonymity. Unless the person starts to use this phone to take your face in a photo and go to the police station to say "Sir I bought/sold Bitcoin to someone, here is his face". Some people are ready to pay a premium price to buy/sell BTC F2F. I could argue and also say that with banknotes you're not anonymous following your logic. Why do you think criminals love cash and big banknotes.

[stompix]

Face to face cash trading of cryptocurrencies is one of the most dangerous ideas to invade the blockchain space in terms of security and anonymity. The risks greatly outweigh the benefits, I am glad it has been removed because it exxposes the parties involved with a lot of security risks.

That's stupid, why trading face to face with someone with is a 'dangerous' invasion for the Blockchain

Common, you're being too hard on a guy that has come out of hibernation after 4 years, joined a bounty campaign and is never going to come back and explain what he meant. 

I just wonder how is paying for a pizza or ordering some computer parts to be delivered to your house is "invading" the blockchain space in terms of anonymity.

This means localbitcoins is no more. Who would use them if no possibility of face to face cash trades?

Hmm, to me it seems like the site is still there, buy and sales orders are still there, reported volume is still there...
https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins

The apocalypse had been postponed.

[jademaxsuy]

As it seems that many are trading with localbitcoins and this is where the government envy that much knowing a huge cash flows in their platform. Money is too hot nowadays and therefore there is no wonder why other government agencies and departments now chasing on every block chain platform. The P2P feature will definitely weakens the government system in every form of transaction to be made. Probably this is the reason why they pressure a platform like this.

[pundit]

If localbitcoins is sharing all the information including bank transactions with the govt then it is definitely not a good news. I think removal of face to face cash transaction is not a big issue but tracking every online transaction on localbitcoins by govt is not good. All govts are behind the life of crypto hunters. I do not know if country like Japan can legalize crypto then why not others. Govts should concentrate on other illegal ways of money transfers instead of hammering crypto world. I hope time will change and we will have good time too.

[Shenzou]

I think that this is the straw that broke the camel's back, localbitcoin has been already struggling to keep up with all the other exchanging platforms, and the only thing that was keeping it alive was the hand to hand or face to face exchange, because that was the only trustworthy method that you could use between tow individuals without any risk of your money being scammed, and with that gone i think it is going to be a matter of time before localbitcoin shuts down, and it does not matter whether they were sharing info with government because transactions made on money transfer like Moneygram and western union and other methods where a dead giveaway.