Localbitcoins bans whole countries

[pugman]

But I definitely need a better alternative, localcryptos is very dead in my region. Ugh, I am so mad right now. Any suggestions???

Here's a nice list of LBC alternatives: https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/dyclf8/list_of_bitcoin_persontoperson_p2p_bitcoin/

Unfortunately most of them aren't very active. If you're not in a hurry to make a trade, it makes sense to post some offers and take advantage of an opportunity to make more profit on a trade.

Yeah I found none of these helpful, and I am surprised that there aren't many offers in my region anymore, its quite technologically advanced and yet, the local crypto market is dying, even on LBC. Great!

It might be time to resort to paypal now, fucking hell, I hate that shit so much ,its just as bad as an exchange with forceful KYC, except Paypal is more reliable.

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[squatter]

But I definitely need a better alternative, localcryptos is very dead in my region. Ugh, I am so mad right now. Any suggestions???

I am hating exchanges more and more by the day.

To whatever extent we can, we should all be building more liquidity on sites like LocalCryptos, Bisq and Hodl Hodl.

Just put up some offers -- what can it hurt? Other traders who normally take liquidity from LocalBitcoins and Paxful are surely hurting from their AML/KYC policies and are looking for alternatives. There is also an opportunity for market making here since it's a less crowded market: Maybe put offers on both sides.

[BlackFor3st]

Customers residing or otherwise located in the following countries are required to have an enhanced due diligence process. The countries are defined by EU commission: Afghanistan, American Samoa, The Bahamas, Botswana, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guam, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, US Virgin Islands, Yemen. The process to activate the account will be introduced in the near future. If you’re not willing to wait for your account to be activated, you can withdraw your bitcoins by deleting your account.

They've frozen thousands of accounts. Twitter is in meltdown over it:

https://twitter.com/search?q=localbitcoins&src=typd

It's not whole countries as there are still plenty of countries that are not listed with the bans but this move is quite fishy as there will be plenty of users that will be affected by this banned.

Plenty users equals huge amount of money that will be freeze or can't be recovered anymore by this move so it is a big scandal if in case plenty of users can't get their money even after submitting all the required documents to unfreeze their accounts. This is the problem with the centralized exchange as we will not know when they are going to make this kind of move that will likely endanger our money therefore it will be best if we will not put a huge amount of money in any centralized exchange to avoid this kind of scenario.

[Kyraishi]

Is this really news?

I mean, LBC has been doing this for months if not years now. Even on this forum there has been multiple reports of LBC banning accounts and freezing the funds within them because they didn't comply with the banned countries listed within the Terms of service agreement.

Two sides to this for the people in these affected countries. The positive thing is that they seem to still be able to withdraw after all, but the negative thing is that obviously they can no longer have access to one of the biggest P2P trading markets in the world. This is why I think decentralized markets like Bisq will thrive in the future, especially when it comes to p2p trades.

[o_e_l_e_o]

To whatever extent we can, we should all be building more liquidity on sites like LocalCryptos, Bisq and Hodl Hodl.

Yes! This is just like all the threads full of people complaining that there is not enough adoption, not enough people accept bitcoin or they have nowhere to spend their bitcoin, but they make exactly zero effort to try to spend it, talk to retailers/merchants/vendors about accepting it, or even spend it at places that do accept it.

If everyone had the attitude of "Oh, there's no volume on BISQ so I won't use it", then there would still be no volume on it anywhere. The places that it has taken hold is because some people put up some offers and waited. As squatter says, it can't hurt to put some offers up. If no one takes them, you've lost nothing, but it might just potentially start a growth of BISQ in your country/area, which is good for everyone long-term as centralized exchanges continue to pull nonsense like this.

[worle1bm]

You mentioned BISQ but there is hardly any volume for non-European and non-US countries.

In terms of being forced to use a CEX, check out the great list that malevolent has linked to above. There are a variety of other DEXs you could try if BISQ isn't an option in your area. There are online communities which trade peer-to-peer, including the marketplaces on this forum and various sub-reddits. There are physical stores and ATMs, voucher and gift card exchanges, marketplaces, and so forth. There might well be an option you simply haven't looked in to yet.

Thing is that I tried P2P networks earlier. Some of the networks are similar to CEX and require that deposit should be made on their site before trading. In other cases, most of the buy/sell offers are scam. My friend once sold his bitcoins on so-call decentralized peer-to-peer trading network but buyer sent him funds from some hacked bank account. As a result, his bank account was froze and his bank revert the transaction. He lost his btc as well as money.

KYC at least ensures that buyer is genuine person and trading from his own bank account.

[Slow death]

Customers residing or otherwise located in the following countries are required to have an enhanced due diligence process. The countries are defined by EU commission: Afghanistan, American Samoa, The Bahamas, Botswana, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guam, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, US Virgin Islands, Yemen. The process to activate the account will be introduced in the near future. If you’re not willing to wait for your account to be activated, you can withdraw your bitcoins by deleting your account.

They've frozen thousands of accounts. Twitter is in meltdown over it:

https://twitter.com/search?q=localbitcoins&src=typd

Panama is a country very well known to everyone, so I don't need to talk about it much

Iraq also has its problems known to all

But why the hell Botswana, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Sri Lanka are on that list? Has anything happened in particular that I haven't heard in the news?

[tippytoes]

Customers residing or otherwise located in the following countries are required to have an enhanced due diligence process. The countries are defined by EU commission: Afghanistan, American Samoa, The Bahamas, Botswana, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guam, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, US Virgin Islands, Yemen. The process to activate the account will be introduced in the near future. If you’re not willing to wait for your account to be activated, you can withdraw your bitcoins by deleting your account.

They've frozen thousands of accounts. Twitter is in meltdown over it:

https://twitter.com/search?q=localbitcoins&src=typd

Panama is a country very well known to everyone, so I don't need to talk about it much

Iraq also has its problems known to all

But why the hell Botswana, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Sri Lanka are on that list? Has anything happened in particular that I haven't heard in the news?

They are taking precautions to a higher level I guess. But the good thing is they are letting the users to withdraw their coins and not total lockdown without the chance to get their money out. Users can always find another option to trade their crypto, now that more and more exchanges are coming out. People should not really be agitated about this.

[o_e_l_e_o]

KYC at least ensures that buyer is genuine person and trading from his own bank account.

It doesn't. There are huge marketplaces buying and selling bank accounts, verified accounts, identification documents, and so forth.

Still, platforms like BISQ have security measures in place to prevent stolen bank accounts being used, such as trading limits and account age witnesses, and you can simply opt not to use methods which can be reversed, such as cash or money orders.

Has anything happened in particular that I haven't heard in the news?

You can see the press release from the European Commission here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_781. Essentially they have decided that these countries have particularly weak anti-money laundering systems, and so are applying enhanced checks to any person or business from those countries.

[Abdussamad]

Is this really news?

I mean, LBC has been doing this for months if not years now. Even on this forum there has been multiple reports of LBC banning accounts and freezing the funds within them because they didn't comply with the banned countries listed within the Terms of service agreement.

Two sides to this for the people in these affected countries. The positive thing is that they seem to still be able to withdraw after all, but the negative thing is that obviously they can no longer have access to one of the biggest P2P trading markets in the world. This is why I think decentralized markets like Bisq will thrive in the future, especially when it comes to p2p trades.

It's news because these are blanket bans. Take my country Pakistan for instance. We had dozens of buying and selling ads at any point in time and overnight its down to half a dozen or less of each type. They've banned people who've been trading for years.

[TheGreatPython]

Customers residing or otherwise located in the following countries are required to have an enhanced due diligence process. The countries are defined by EU commission: Afghanistan, American Samoa, The Bahamas, Botswana, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guam, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, US Virgin Islands, Yemen. The process to activate the account will be introduced in the near future. If you’re not willing to wait for your account to be activated, you can withdraw your bitcoins by deleting your account.

They've frozen thousands of accounts. Twitter is in meltdown over it:

https://twitter.com/search?q=localbitcoins&src=typd

Panama is a country very well known to everyone, so I don't need to talk about it much

Iraq also has its problems known to all

But why the hell Botswana, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Sri Lanka are on that list? Has anything happened in particular that I haven't heard in the news?

They are taking precautions to a higher level I guess. But the good thing is they are letting the users to withdraw their coins and not total lockdown without the chance to get their money out. Users can always find another option to trade their crypto, now that more and more exchanges are coming out. People should not really be agitated about this.

None of the traders might be shocked reading this news from the respective countries. The countries mentioned above have very little number of traders who do trade in mass volume so also I think that they might not be holding excess funds onto localbitcoins. localbitcoins is one of the reputed exchange since times and we have faith in it.

Also if it had any intentions to scam the users than why would they give time to the traders to withdraw their funds from the platform? They might be facing some verification issues for those above mentioned countries as localbitcoins have made KYC verification mandatory which needs to be verified by the authorities.

[pugman]

To whatever extent we can, we should all be building more liquidity on sites like LocalCryptos, Bisq and Hodl Hodl.

Just put up some offers -- what can it hurt? Other traders who normally take liquidity from LocalBitcoins and Paxful are surely hurting from their AML/KYC policies and are looking for alternatives. There is also an opportunity for market making here since it's a less crowded market: Maybe put offers on both sides.

I fully agree on what you say, liquidity can't be created from thin air, but from us rather. But usually when I trade, I want the trade to be dealt with in a matter of minutes, and I personally feel very anxious keeping my money on an exchange for days, especially after the bittrex mishap.

And also, there is 0 offers for my region in all these sites, and I don't know if I personally am willing to take the risk and try to create liquidity.

[milewilda]

Is this really news?

I mean, LBC has been doing this for months if not years now. Even on this forum there has been multiple reports of LBC banning accounts and freezing the funds within them because they didn't comply with the banned countries listed within the Terms of service agreement.

Two sides to this for the people in these affected countries. The positive thing is that they seem to still be able to withdraw after all, but the negative thing is that obviously they can no longer have access to one of the biggest P2P trading markets in the world. This is why I think decentralized markets like Bisq will thrive in the future, especially when it comes to p2p trades.

Try to backread on what o_e_l_e_o about this one.Its said that people havent able to withdraw their funds or simply their accounts been locked and restricted.
Therefore, majority of them wont really have any choice but either to comply or just let their funds locked and moved on.I actually do expect for these centralized platforms
to end up this way.It might not be now but for sure the day would come where its users would be the losser in the end of the day.People never ever learn that they shouldnt
keep funds on exchangers for too long to avoid these kinds of situations.

[liuqi]

Many exchanges and wallet providers are collecting the KYC information from the every consumers using the application. I'm not sure how many exchanges will take action against the the users for making money in crypto field.
It should not be nightmare for many people.

[Harlot]

I would accept this KYC requirement if they have announced it prior to the freezing of the accounts like they have given more time for the users to move around their funds, but what they did is something like a scam ICO project would do where all of the sudden they'll be asking for KYC before they receive payment for the bounty or receive the token/crypto they have bought. It some kind of ambush where the users really have no choice but to comply or else their money would be loss. I know that companies in the crypto industry such as Localbitcoin needs to comply with enhance KYC requirements for them to be able to operate in these countries but a surprise like this for their users is simply unacceptable in any way.

[Abdussamad]

There were plenty of users from these countries on localbitcoins which is why there's such an uproar about what they did. My country Pakistan had many pages of buying and selling ads.

[bearexin]

But, they have at least giving a chance for their users from the above mentioned countries to withdraw their funds before deleting their accounts. This might not indicate localbitcoins as a scam but it shows us that they might be trying to improve their customer verification.

Trading and exchanging bitcoins or any other cryptocurrency is not yet been legalized in the whole world which does not allow exchanges like localbitcoins to regulate globally. They need to follow some rules and regulations from the governments. Also, there are quit few traders from those countries mentioned in the source of OP so it might not be a large scale issue.

[skhan855]

Abdul Samad , brother, need help, how to contact you?
your message box is restricted.

[rexxarofmoknathal]

Customers residing or otherwise located in the following countries are required to have an enhanced due diligence process. The countries are defined by EU commission: Afghanistan, American Samoa, The Bahamas, Botswana, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guam, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, US Virgin Islands, Yemen. The process to activate the account will be introduced in the near future. If you’re not willing to wait for your account to be activated, you can withdraw your bitcoins by deleting your account.

They've frozen thousands of accounts. Twitter is in meltdown over it:

https://twitter.com/search?q=localbitcoins&src=typd

Panama is a country very well known to everyone, so I don't need to talk about it much

Iraq also has its problems known to all

But why the hell Botswana, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Sri Lanka are on that list? Has anything happened in particular that I haven't heard in the news?

These are countries where entrepreneurs and investors as such are not as prominent and where governments are too influential and where culture is a great obstacle to technology innovation. So judging by these facts alone I'd guess that there's no much interest in these countries for generating or attracting potential investors since there way more attractive places to go to. Even still, I do not think exclusion and separation is a good approach 

[skhan855]

Abdusamad bhai, need help related to bitfinex kyc, how can I contact you?