Localbitcoins closing down

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

From what I could see as stated on the official website of the localbitcoin.com is that the team is working on renewing the site by adding more features which will equally take months before it could be completed, as I didn't see any sign of it closing down, because I think maybe O.P may have misinterpret "renewing" to be "closing down".



Here is what stated on the official website down below

To make LocalBitcoins even more user friendly for you, our valued customers, we've started the process of renewing our website. The process is on its way and will take a few months to complete. We're working hard to make sure it matches all of your needs.

During the process, we will not only introduce a refreshed look and feel but also completely renew and simplify key functionalities. This includes: the wallet dashboard, trading views and the verification portal.

We will renew each web page one section at a time. Below, through the release notes, you'll be able to follow along to see which sections we've already renewed and which sections we'll proceed with next.


What's to come

1. Refreshed trading views:
Chat, trade, repeat - new trading views make it smooth, fast and safe.

2. New advertisement management experience:
Faster and simpler experience for you to manage all of your advertisements.

3. New verification portal
For a greatly enhanced, simplified and faster verification experience.

4. Customer support:
New portal for handling any support requests you might have.

5. And many other minor improvements:
We will keep adding details as we progress with the website renewal.

https://localbitcoins.com/about-website-renewal/

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[AverageGlabella]

From what I could see as stated on the official website of the localbitcoin.com is that the team is working on renewing the site by adding more features which will equally take months before it could be completed, as I didn't see any sign of it closing down, because I think maybe O.P may have misinterpret "renewing" to be "closing down".

It has been confirmed by many members on this forum that they have said they are closing down but they might reopen when they have renewed their websites you are right. I think that means they would try to compete with the other exchanges that have stolen their traffic but I am not sure how they are going to compete against Binance without big fees for transactions. They might make a membership which you have to pay monthly to use their service.

They should be more clear if they intend on opening again but they say that customers need to withdraw their money before 12 months. It is confusing.

[jackg]

Makes me glad that I didn't do any KYC with these goons. Before you can trade, they ask for all kinds of stuff including ID cards and SSNs (if you are an american). Who knows what is going to happen to these documents once LocalBitcoins is gone or whether they will even securely destroy them.

I think they were partially a victim of regulations and being stuck where they were physically. There's a lot of countries they could've easily moved to that has fewer regulations, but no, they stayed in one of the first countries that decided to enforce them (Finland).

Doing trades on there before kyc was really slick. They were a great dex when I used them (similar in style to bisq now iirc) but then regulations came...


Is this going to be like when Purse.io tried to close or a lot of other sites in crypto? They're either: closing, wanting the free ads, wanting to quit and sell the site (there's probably a decent number of buyers out there especially if they can keep the name and the brand but go kyc free).

[dkbit98]

Doing trades on there before kyc was really slick. They were a great dex when I used them (similar in style to bisq now iirc) but then regulations came...

It's sad to see one of the oldest Bitcoin p2p trading websites going down like this, but this was expected after they accepted mandatory kyc regulations on their platfrom.
In future we are going to have to pick sides and I don't see any reason to use websites like LocalBitcoin if they have kyc verification.
I am not worried about this news at all, there are several alternative options for p2p trading that work just fine now, and for all others there are always centralized exchanges.
This is obviously related to latest Operation Choke Point 2.0 that was started by US administration, to make life harder for all crypto to fiat connections.

[stompix]

From what I could see as stated on the official website of the localbitcoin.com is that the team is working on renewing the site by adding more features which will equally take months before it could be completed, as I didn't see any sign of it closing down, because I think maybe O.P may have misinterpret "renewing" to be "closing down".

It was already posted, here is the announcement
https://localbitcoins.com/service_closure/
Also the Twitter announcement a few hours ago:
https://twitter.com/LocalBitcoins/status/1623683223178862593

With a quarter million views in a few hours, it did trigger quite the reaction so it wasn't like LB was a deserted place, it still had users but probably they saw that the end is near and they have no chance of growing their activities even with a price increase. And maybe thy;ve made enough and had enough BTC stashed aside that any future gains from fee would simply not make sense compared to the headaches from the regulations they had to follow.

Still, not the news one would want to read.

[ParticlAccelerator]

There is a KYC free alternative to local bitcoins. It's called Particl marketplace. It's an anonymous yet trustless marketplace (particl.io). You can pay for any goods or services there including bank transfers, there is someone listing monero for sale there currently, but you can also get bullion, cash in the post and bank transfers.

Particl also has a fully decentralised and trustless cross blockchain atomic swap exchange (basicswapdex.com). The developers are currently integrating the exchange directly into the marketplace so that you can pay in pretty much any cypto. So it's not so much a local bitcoins replacement as an "any crypto" to fiat, bullion and cash in the post replacement.

The exchange is proving very popular with the monero community who have been extensively testing it and are considering including it as a plugin with their default wallet so any monero user can access the exchange as well.

Here is a neat video on it: https://youtu.be/1gYNX4ue_O4

[Get-Paid.com]

For those who don't mind going through KYC what are the best alternatives now? Any suggestions?

 

[dkbit98]

For those who don't mind going through KYC what are the best alternatives now? Any suggestions?

Probably something like Binance p2p exchange, but I don't see why you would use kyc when there are alternatives that work fine without it (Bisq, AgoraDesk, HoldHodl).
If you want something that looks similar like LocalBitcoins, than you can check out Localcoinswap.com or Paxful.com.
Just make sure you read the terms before signing up for any of this platforms.

[OmegaStarScream]

For those who don't mind going through KYC what are the best alternatives now? Any suggestions?

 

Binance is probably the best option: zero escrow fees unlike some of their competitors, and there are also loads of offers, so you don't have to worry about not finding people to deal with.

If you're planning on buying or selling gift cards (which is risky) Paxful is the place to go.

[m2017]

Times are such that even a localbitcoins could not survive this crypto-winter.
Sadly. Their name has almost become a household name.

Somehow this news passed very imperceptibly. If I hadn’t accidentally looked into this section (I confess that I don’t often do it) and would not have known about what happened.

The fewer alternative platforms (ways) for bitcoin exchange, the tighter the ring of centralization and regulation narrows. I hope that the number of closed exchange platforms will be compensated by new ones that will offer new ways.

[Tigggger]

I used to use it a lot in the early days as it was one of the few places where you could buy and sell with a decent amount of security.

It's probably been about 5 years since I last used it though as there are many quicker and simpler methods these days however my first thought was also this...

I thought it would be sold instead of shutting down because it is one of the most known exchanges in the btc community.

According to the coindesk article volumes have slumped but it's still doing $5-$7 million per week.  Surely there's got to be some profit to be made.

Maybe the announcement will generate some interest from a buyer.

[DaveF]

Got the official email from them this morning about the closing.
More or less a copy of what the web page said.

Interesting that I figured by now I would be getting emails from the other places that offer it that I have accounts with [Binance and such] mentioning that they have a service like the one that LBC offered. What is their marketing department doing?

-Dave

[Haunebu]

This freaking sucks. Woke up and checked my email and actually thought that this was some sort of early April fools joke for a moment. I have been using LBC as my primary exchange for years now with minimal issues.

Never expected them to shut down in my wildest dreams. There's still a lot of trading activity that goes on there on a regular basis. I found several reliable traders there who I might lose touch with thanks to this issue.

I will definitely miss this site and will look for alternatives pretty soon.

[Potato Chips]

I found several reliable traders there who I might lose touch with thanks to this issue.

While not everyone will buy it, you can try to minimize these numbers by suggesting them another p2p platform you go to. This is what I did when LC was about to wind down, few days later, I found two traders in agoradesk.

[ParticlAccelerator]

About five or six localbitcoin sellers have migrated to ParticlMarketplace as it effectively adds an enforced trustless layer to transfers of funds. particl.store shows a portal view of current offers and pricing.

You can access the marketplace from particl's default wallet at particl.io. Shortly you'll be able to pay in most major cryptos directly, so it should end up having better swap options than the old local bitcoins.

The decentralised exchange particl launched two years ago - BasicSwapDEX.com - now also supports Litecoin MWEB (mimblewimble). The Litecoin and Particl foundations have also just announced a partnership because of this, as it finally gives privacy coin users a place to trade. It seems to be the safest, cheapest and most anonymous option for privacy coin users, or anyone trading for that matter.

Both foundations also jointly announced a competition to celebrate this news where they are giving away five first edition Lealana 1LTC physicals over the coming weeks, see here for more info:

https://twitter.com/BasicSwapDEX/status/1753482630622798198

https://twitter.com/BasicSwapDEX/status/1753481499356401731

[ParticlAccelerator]

And now the main litecoin account is tweeting about the competition too:
https://twitter.com/litecoin/status/1754527804165873684