Finland-based peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency platform LocalBitcoins is shutting down operations after serving its customers for more than 10 years. LocalBitcoins officially announced termination of services on Feb. 9, citing tough market conditions of the ongoing cryptocurrency winter. “Regardless of our efforts to overcome challenges during the ongoing very cold crypto-winter, we have regretfully concluded that LocalBitcoins can no longer provide its Bitcoin trading service,” the firm said. LocalBitcoins encouraged all customers to withdraw their crypto assets from the platform, asking to proceed with withdrawing Bitcoin (BTC) from the LocalBitcoins wallet. According to the announcement, users will be able to withdraw …

Cuba is seeing an influx of cryptocurrency activity amid an apparent absence of related regulation in the country, according to senior executives at local crypto firms. In early November, Cuba recorded a major spike in Bitcoin (BTC)-related Google queries, indicating an increase in crypto activity in the country. Founders of major local crypto exchanges Qbita and Bitremesas told Cointelegraph that their platforms have seen increased activity in recent months. Erich Garcia, the creator of Bitremesas, told Cointelegraph that the platform has been steadily growing this year, seeing a notable influx in user activity. “By now, the use of the service …

Cuba is apparently seeing an influx of Bitcoin (BTC)-related activity as Bitcoin interest is on the rise in the country. According to data from Google Trends, Cuba now ranks second in terms of Bitcoin interest over the past 30 days. The island nation follows Nigeria, which has remained as the top country searching for Bitcoin on Google since April 2020. The rest of Google’s top five regions searching for Bitcoin comprise the African countries of South Africa, Cameroon and Ghana. Cuba’s rise in Bitcoin-related searches comes amid reports of Cubans increasingly turning to Bitcoin to circumvent sanctions imposed by the …

A report published by Arcane Research has revealed that nearly half of Paxful’s trade volume comes from trade between Bitcoin (BTC) and gift cards. The report found that, “purchasing Bitcoin with gift cards has been the preferred solution on Paxful each month throughout the five-year span analyzed,” and in June accounted for 48% of Paxful’s volume. Paxful processes nearly $40 million in weekly trade, which means up to $20M of BTC is exchanged for gift cards every week. Arcane highlighted the last week of June this year in the report, in which $16.2M BTC was sold for gift cards. Arcane …

LocalBitcoins, a major peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange, is no longer available in Russia without using additional tools like a VPN. LocalBitcoins.net is officially blacklisted in Russia as local telecom regulator Roskomnadzor placed the URL on a register of platforms disseminating prohibited information. According to official data, the website was blacklisted on July 21, following an order of the Onezhsky City Court of the Arkhangelsk region. It’s not immediately clear when exactly Roskomnadzor limited the access to LocalBitcoins’ website. Some local reports claim that LocalBitcoins users in Russia began to experience difficulties in accessing the website in late September 2020. LocalBitcoins has …

Russia’s new cryptocurrency-related law, “On Digital Financial Assets,” or DFA, seems to have had little impact on the local cryptocurrency industry so far. In its current form, the DFA law essentially provides legal status to digital assets like Bitcoin (BTC), but prohibits their use for payments in Russia. As the DFA law is poised to be officially adopted in less than four months, Cointelegraph talked to major crypto firms operating in Russia to get their take on how the new law can impact their business. Based on comments from executives at companies like Binance, Waves, Paxful, LocalBitcoins, and Wirex, companies …

The recent crypto market slump has driven massive trade volumes on centralized exchanges, but peer-to-peer (P2P) trading platforms actually saw a sharp decline in activity. Latin-America was the only region to buck the trend. The top region for P2P trade, the United States, posted a 42% slump in peer-to-peer volume this week — plummeting from $23.4 million to nearly $13.6 million. Sub-Saharan African has been the second-largest region for P2P trade after North America for much of 2020. It saw P2P volume fall 32%, from roughly $12.9 million to $8.7 million — driven by a 38% crash in Nigerian activity. …

In his college-aged days, Chris Maurice, the CEO of African crypto exchange Yellow Card, said he put his life savings into Bitcoin (BTC), finding it stolen shortly after. "Bitcoin was about $200 at the time, and I decided basically I was just going to dump my entire savings account into into it," Maurice told Cointelegraph in an interview. Maurice said he had approximately $5,000 in his savings back then, with which he bought roughly 21 BTC. "I was holding it all on LocalBitcoins, because that was the wallet that I used at the time and I didn't really know any …

Following an earlier endeavor selling Bitcoin (BTC) at a premium on eBay in 2015, Chris Maurice, CEO of African crypto exchange Yellow Card, made a small business selling the asset at multiple Taco Bell locations. Maurice worked with his friend Justin Poiroux on the endeavor. Poiroux, who later co-founded the Yellow Card exchange, first explained Bitcoin to Maurice about two years prior. "We would post on Craigslist and on LocalBitcoins, and we would say, 'Hey we have Bitcoin, come meet up with us and give us cash and we'll give you the Bitcoin,'" Maurice told Cointelegraph in an interview. LocalBitcoins …

Even as fears of another blanket ban on India’s digital asset market linger on, peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading within the Asian powerhouse is still surging, hitting all-time highs over the first week of August. This immense growth was initially spurred by the Supreme Court’s unequivocal decision earlier in March 2020 to repeal an unconstitutional circular imposed by the Reserve Bank of India forbidding local banks and various financial institutions from providing services to crypto exchanges and investors. According to data aggregated by peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) marketplaces Paxful and Localbitcoins, weekly trading volumes in India have been gaining ground consistently since April. …

Combined global peer-to-peer (P2P) Bitcoin trading volumes have surged to their highest levels since January 2018, with nearly $95 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) changing hands on Localbitcoins and Paxful in the first week of August. The spike comes as many Latin American markets have seen trade activity rally into new highs over recent weeks, with the Bitcoin P2P markets in Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Honduras, Paraguay, Uruguay and The Bahamas all posting record highs since the start of July. Venezuelan trade still represents the lion’s share of Latin America’s nearly $13 billion in weekly P2P trade, posting more than …

LocalBitcoins has partnered with blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic — the latest move in the veteran peer-to-peer exchange’s fight against criminal activities on its platform. Speaking to Cointelegraph, chief operating officer at LocalBitcoins, Elena Tonoyan, said the partnership was a key step in tackling the complex challenge the platform faces. She explained: “LocalBitcoins handles only Bitcoins — we don’t touch traditional currencies — hence we don’t have the same visibility to the traditional financial side as for example the banks. Additionally LocalBitcoins is very diverse and operates in 150+ countries, which creates its own challenges when it comes to the practical …