Local Bitcoins, Pioneer P2P Bitcoin Exchange, Shuts Down After a Decade of Service Due to Crypto Winter
Local Bitcoins, the first peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin exchange, is winding down or shutting down after more than 10 years in business, according to a news the exchange published on its website. The latest sign up will be suspended till 9th February 2023 and with that trading will be suspended after 7 days on 16th February. Local Bitcoins users will only be able to withdraw their bitcoins after the suspension of trading, and they will of course have 12 months to do so.
The company says on Thursday that Local Bitcoins was originally founded to bring bitcoin everywhere and to drive its global financial inclusion and we’ve honored that mission for 10 years this year and we’re proud to Together with all our actions, we have managed to gain our loyal community and have achieved significant milestones in its growth. Further bitcoin exchange states that we are sad to share that we are still trying to overcome the challenges during the crypto winter currently appearing and despite our efforts we have concluded that Local Bitcoins is now unable to provide its own bitcoin trading services.
Certainly in the early years, Local Bitcoins was involved as a preferred exchange for peer-to-peer trades globally and the platform saw strength in its first few years but the centralized crypto exchange eventually took off. This led Local Bitcoins to become more prominent in a sector without centralized trading options and, until 2019, faced the challenges of pursuing a peer-to-peer exchange while also complying with KYC regulations. was required and additionally eliminated in-person trades this year, making the platform less attractive to peer-to-peer traders. During the upswing in the crypto market and digital currency prices in 2021, Local Bitcoins announced the launch of an Android mobile app running side by side and despite this, Local bitcoins did not recapture the volume seen in 2017 . The platform continued to decline even during the bull market of 2021, and this shows that Local Bitcoins volume is now almost as low as it was in 2015, and has seen a modest increase since the first week of February 2023. , which saw 6.56 million BTC traded over a seven-day period.
