• LocalBitcoins, a popular peer-to-peer crypto trading platform, has announced the discontinuation of its service.
• The company cited the persistent downside pressure in the crypto market as a cause of their decision.
• Users still have access to their funds and wallets, but only to withdraw them; this service will be maintained for one year.
LocalBitcoins Discontinues Service
An official statement from the popular peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto trading platform LocalBitcoins announced the discontinuation of its service. The company claims that the persistent downside pressure in the crypto market negatively impacted its service capacity.
BTC Price Moving Sideways
BTC’s price is currently moving sideways on the daily chart. This is coupled with other bearish factors that caused LocalBitcoins to stop providing its Bitcoin trading services despite efforts to overcome challenges during this cold crypto-winter period.
Impact Of KYC Policy
The discontinuation of LocalBitcoins’ services was also due to regulatory pressures that forced it to impose a Know Your Customer (KYC) policy on its users which came into effect around 2019. This decision received some criticism as it drove away some customers who were looking for anonymity when trading cryptocurrencies.
Dropping Trading Volume
Since its inception, LocalBitcoins had seen an exponential increase in its trading volume which dropped from 2018 to 2019 when the new KYC policy was implemented and when the whole market underwent a winter phase similar to today’s conditions.
Service Shut Down Timeline
The platform will stop new users from signing up for their platform from today while on February 16th, trading will be suspended along with LocalBitcoin’s wallet feature. Old users are still allowed access so they can withdraw their funds and send them over to an external wallet before one year is over when all services will be shutdown completely.