Localbitcoins Removes In-Person Cash Trades Forcing Traders to Look Elsewhere

On June 1, cryptocurrency enthusiasts were shocked to hear that the peer-to-peer exchange Localbitcoins has ceased offering in-person cash trades. According to a few users, all pending fiat trades have been canceled, leaving local traders who prefer cash high and dry and forced to seek other avenues.

Also read: Bitcoin.com’s Local Bitcoin Cash Marketplace Gathers Thousands of Pre-Launch Signups

Localbitcoins Ends In-Person Trades Leaving Only Remote Options

One of the oldest over-the-counter BTC exchanges, Localbitcoins, has removed cash trades from its list of options. This means that people cannot use the platform to meet in person and sell BTC for cash or vice versa. Localbitcoins hasn’t officially announced why it removed the option, but a few traders have stated that all in-person cash trades were suddenly canceled. “I logged in and found my ‘in-person’ sell offers were all deleted, and the ‘add new’ prompt now has no ‘local’ options, only ‘online’ ones — Kind of defeats the purpose of ‘local’ in the name,” one trader detailed on the Reddit forum r/bitcoin.

The news spread like wildfire across social media and bitcoiners discussed new ways to trade in-person for cash. Ray Youseff, the founder of the peer-to-peer platform Paxful, noted on Twitter that his platform has started seeing a great number of new registrations.

“Localbitcoins is now Remote Bitcoins — They took down all their cash offers and the refugees are flooding to Paxful VIP support for all cash vendors,” Youseff exclaimed. “We won’t let you down — Cash is still king in the emerging world.”

Sure enough, after logging on to the Localbitcoins site, all local in-person trades have been removed from the drop-down menu. Localbitcoins’ reason for stopping in-person cash trades remains unclear right now and a few other users complained that their cash trades were canceled without any warnings. The removal of cash trades follows the peer-to-peer platform’s recent addition of more KYC requirements for large traders and the operation also ceased serving Iranians. The news also comes two days before the launch of Local.Bitcoin.com, a peer-to-peer marketplace that will allow individuals to trade bitcoin cash (BCH) privately with anyone in the world.

Local.Bitcoin.com Offers Local P2P Trades

Traders can use the peer-to-peer local bitcoin cash marketplace with any payment method and the noncustodial platform also offers great margins for both buyers and sellers. There is a wide variety of online payment methods for people who are trading from a distance, but the BCH marketplace also offers in-person cash trades so people can trade with each other locally. If you are looking for an exchange that provides cash trades in person or if you want to trade by using another form of payment, you can create an account before it launches on June 4.

Creating an account today will allow people to get a feel for the platform and users can start creating sell orders in advance for when the marketplace launches. During the pre-launch over the next 48 hours, users can add profile details like payment method, location, and local currency. People can download a wallet backup to secure future funds and be prepared to do over-the-counter trades effortlessly. Moreover, Local.Bitcoin.com traders can earn through referrals when they invite friends and family members to the BCH marketplace. For instance, if a friend of yours signs up through a referral then you will be rewarded with 20% of their lifetime trading fees.

It’s a shame that Localbitcoins has chosen to stop offering in-person cash trades and the recent changes are sure to leave some traders out in the cold if they prefer to trade in person with cash. The decision may create risk for traders who opt to forgo Localbitcoins’ escrow system and try trading in an unsafe manner either within the platform’s chat messenger or use methods like Craigslist. Without an escrow system, traders can potentially be robbed for their funds. For this reason, peer-to-peer trading platforms with escrow solutions are far more secure and safer to use. When you use Local.Bitcoin.com’s BCH marketplace, the platform offers blind escrow which creates onchain Bitcoin Cash transactions while the funds sit in limbo. It is technically impossible for anyone (including Bitcoin.com) outside of the deal to spend the BCH held in escrow and only the two parties involved can complete the settlement. With Localbitcoins removing in person cash trades, it further emphasizes the need for noncustodial solutions within the growing crypto community.

If you are just hearing about Local.Bitcoin.com and want step-by-step instructions on how to sign up and create a trade, check out this informative article.

What do you think about Localbitcoins removing in person cash trades from the exchange’s trading options? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Local.Bitcoin.com, Pixabay, and Twitter.

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