Localbitcoins slowly dying?

[OmegaStarScream]

I recently came across this P2P aggregator, and I've been checking the data they provide for a few days now. See here: https://monetory.io/

I can understand where the offers are coming from when it comes to Huobi and Binance for example, since they both were CEXes with millions of users way before launching their P2P platforms but Localbitcoins? It looks like they're slowly dying and they're not only losing to the big names I just mentioned or Paxful but also to the non-KYC and decentralized exchanges like LocalCryptos and Bitzlato.

Although I do realize that these numbers may not represent all the offers listed on the platforms, it should still be a good indication of how each platform is doing. What are your thoughts on this?

[dkbit98]

Although I do realize that these numbers may not represent all the offers listed on the platforms, it should still be a good indication of how each platform is doing. What are your thoughts on this?

I wouldn't say they are dying and they still have respectable number of offers compared to other similar websites if we can trust information from Monetory website.
LocalCoinSwap has less offers than Locabitcoins and they don't have kyc, HodlHodl has even less then both of them and they will probably die first.
Most important thing for this websites is reputation and I think you can transfer reputation from Locabitcoins directly to LocalCryptos,
that is one of the reasons why lot of people moved there, plus there is no kyc so it's no brainer really.

[Oshosondy]

Although I do realize that these numbers may not represent all the offers listed on the platforms, it should still be a good indication of how each platform is doing. What are your thoughts on this?

That is true, but I am not surprised not to see bisq among the listed p2p exchanges because it is the most decentralized, people prefer to go for what is simple, not minding privacy. If you notice, as the exchanges listed are getting less decentralized to the ones that are centralized, the numbers of users are increasing while the exchanges with most users are custodial exchanges. People do not care about privacy at all, privacy which is very important to having full control.

[LeGaulois]

The graph comes from usefultulips.org which uses Localbitcoins API


You may notice that the decline has started in 2019. That's when the platform began to impose identity verification if you remember.
There was a small rise last year, but I think it is because of the Covid situation. Anyway, it didn't last long and the number of transactions has really gone down in comparison to before. It's back to what it was in 2016 about.

I can't get recent data about paxful to compare but it declined in 2019 and the vast majority of its users are from Latin America.



This would mean that people are moving away from such platforms or switching to another one. Binance?
Anyway, I'm a bit surprised the company is taking such a large share of the market. I thought it would be at the bottom of the list...

[hugeblack]

They do not die, but the increase in competition made their share of customers decrease, and I also think that sellers are using that site to find buyers for the first time and then move to other sites (direct trading without escrow, Localcryptos or others. Just as we use Facebook groups and then move to Telegram)

In general, there is no longer anything attractive except the customer base, which decreases over time, so if platforms like Bisq are developed, they will lose a large part of these customers, and then we will say that they are dying.

[Taskford]

I'm not surprised to see the number of users decline at this year knowing that there are many competitor rise and compete with them on this industry so I think Localbitcoins need to have good marketing and or other promos which can make their old user to comeback to use their service as well as they can accumulate more new user to use their wallet and other services what they can offer.