A new victim of the bear market that we are currently going through. The historic cryptocurrency exchange platform between individuals, LocalBitcoins, has announced that it will end its activities after ten years of operation.
La plateforme LocalBitcoins annonce sa fermeture après 10 ans d’activité
End clap for LocalBitcois
This is an important page turning for the world of cryptocurrencies. The largest Bitcoin (BTC) purchase platform between individuals, LocalBitcoins, has announced its closure after 10 years of operation.
🧡💙 pic.twitter.com/4j5M7iZkaD
—LocalBitcoins (@LocalBitcoins) February 9, 2023
Founded in 2012, LocalBitcoins was a website for connect Bitcoin buyers and sellers by offering the possibility of carrying out the transaction online or live.
In a statement released on February 9, LocalBitcoins said it was unable to “overcoming the difficulties of this ongoing cryptocurrency bear market”. The company announced that it was ending the ability to register and create a new profile.
Customers are called upon to withdraw the funds stored on the platform as soon as possible. Starting next week, customers will only be able to log in and withdraw their bitcoins, as the statement states:
“We encourage all our customers to withdraw their funds from LocalBitcoins, and we ask that you withdraw bitcoins from your LocalBitcoins wallets. You have 12 months to withdraw your funds, but of course we encourage you to do so as soon as possible. »
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The effect of the bear market and regulation
It has now been several years since LocalBitcoins sees a gradual decline in trading volumes and number of users. Very popular between 2015 and 2019, the platform allowing the purchase of bitcoins anonymously has quietly lost its interest in the eyes of users.
First of all, LocalBitcoins has suffered from increasing regulation in the cryptocurrency industry. Between 2014 and 2016, there were several rumors that LocalBitcoins users violated anti-money laundering laws. Allegations that turned out to be true since two people were convicted in 2016.
In 2019, being based in Helsinki, the platform had to comply with local regulations and therefore removed some featuresincluding cash payments.
Later, in 2020, LocalBitcoins had started to delete user accounts a little at a time, without informing them of the process. An initiative that obviously greatly displeased the investors concerned and the community.
For all these reasons, the P2P platform has gradually observed a decrease in its number of customersinitially coming for anonymity and a variety of services that had therefore disappeared.
Obviously, LocalBitcoins has also been hit hard by the development of the market and the birth of many competing platforms in the P2P sector (Local.Bitcoin, LocalEthereum, etc.). But above all, it is the mindset of investors that has changed, these turn more easily to traditional centralized platformssuch as Binance, Coinbase or Kraken.
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Lilian Aliaga
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