One of the world’s most popular and earliest peer to peer bitcoin exchange platform; LocalBitcoins has announced that it will be shutting down its business after over ten (10) years of operations.
The peer to peer exchange platform which is based in Helsinki, Finland made it known via a statement that it is, “proud of what we have achieved together with all of you, our loyal community.”
It however, added that it can no longer continue to provide its service as a result of “challenges during the ongoing very cold crypto-winter.”
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LocalBitcoins also revealed the timeline for the closures of its services. First on that list, is the halting of new signups which is already in effect. It is followed closely by the stopping of all trading and deposits from the 16th of February 2023.
As from the 17th of February 2023 all LocalBitcoins users will only be able to withdraw their cryptocurrencies from their LocalBitcoins wallets. Users will be allowed to carry out withdrawals for a period of twelve (12) months only.
Prior to this news the peer to peer platform had continued to launch new exciting features for its users including a one click Bitcoin purchase function that was rolled out as early as the 22nd of January 2023 as shown on the LocalBitcoins’ official Twitter account.
As at the time of putting this article together, LocalBitcoins had still not provided any responses, additional comments or information.
In 2012, LocalBitcoins was founded by Jeremias Kangas. Based in Helsinki, Finland the platform, made it possible for over the counter trading of local currencies in exchange for Bitcoins. All its users had to do was post advertisements on the LocalBitcoins website, specify their exchange rates and preferred payment methods for buying or selling their Bitcoins.
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In 2019 the platform received negative press after a report from CipherTrace made it known that LocalBitcoins was one of the leading destinations for illegitimate Bitcoins. It implemented a cash ban on the platform and also introduced a KYC (Know Your Customer) featured that was powered by Onfido; a technology company that is a global leader in fraud detection, identity verification and Artificial Intelligence (AI) development experience.
The tech company; Onfido made it known that the LocalBitcoins had at the time, onboarded and verified users from a total of 189 countries.
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In 2021, LocalBitcoins moved to include other cryptocurrencies on its platform. The move gave its users access to a number of other coins like Cardano and Dogecoin.
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