Jan 13, 2021
Minnesota Among States Where LocalBitcoins Is Terminating Service
Affected accounts on LocalBitcoins will be closed February 9th, 2021. Withdraw (or sell) your BTC, if you have a LocalBitcoins account!
An article on the online news site BeInCrypto describes how “only 10 states will continue to receive support from the platform”. Those states are:
- Illinois
- Kansas
- Montana
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Virginia
- Wisconsin
The message in the photo above was sent via e-mail to LocalBitcoin’s customers. There was also confirmation via a Tweet:
LocalBitcoins, the first widely used P2P bitcoin trading platform previously had for years remained the largest (by trading volume). However after imposing mandatory identity verification / KYC requirements a couple years ago, their trading volume has since dropped off significantly, and LocalBitcoins volume now ranks in second place, with Paxful taking the lead. The following weekly BTC/USD P2P trading volume chart from UsefulTulips shows this.
U.S.-based Paxful has been seeing volume shift away as well after they too began requireing identity verification / KYC for much of their customer base.
Fortunately there are numerous No-KYC P2P trading platforms where identity verification / KYC is not required, and their volumes are growing as a result of defections — first from those leaving LocalBitcoins, and now from those leaving Paxful as well.
A comprehensive list of P2P trading platforms can be found on this post elsewhere on Medium.
Some of those No-KYC P2P trading platforms are also Non-Custodial (e.g., LocalCryptos, LocalCoinSwap, and Bisq). HodlHodl is both No-KYC and Non-Custodial however they currently have a geofence restricting access for those in the United States.
Due to numerous battles with Twitter in which the MinnFinTech Twitter account was “Temporarily Restricted” (i.e., Locked, requiring phone re-verification) — multiple times, and suspended at least once, that Twitter account has been (and will remain) abandoned.
Going forward, MinnFinTech’s social media presence is @MinnFinTech@Mstdn.Social and uses the decentralized social media network Mastodon. Incidentally, one of the largest Mastodon network hosts is the BitcoinHackers.org Mastodon server.
