Paxful, a leading P2P Bitcoin trading platform, is back online after a month’s hiatus due to staff departures and regulatory issues. The company prioritized user safety during the downtime and encouraged fund withdrawals. With a significant presence in Nigeria, Paxful served over 1.5 million users who traded $1.5 billion in cryptocurrencies. Despite internal conflicts, the CEO ensured business continuity. Meanwhile, competitor LocalBitcoins remains inactive, citing market challenges.

Paxful, a peer-to-peer (P2P) Bitcoin (BTC) trading platform, is back online after a month of inactivity in the market due to the departure of key employees and regulatory issues. The company announced the reopening in a blog post. 

• “After a month-long hiatus, we are delighted to announce that the Paxful Marketplace is back online,” the company wrote.  
• “Over the past month, our team has been working diligently to bring the market back online with the safety of our users as our number one priority,” Paxful said. 

Paxful’s largest market is Nigeria, where he has over 1.5 million users who traded $1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrencies on the platform between 2015 and 2020.  

Paxful founder and CEO Ray Youssef said in a statement announcing the closure decision last month that all customer funds are accounted for. He also asked them to withdraw funds and self-management. 

Additionally, Youssef said Paxful offers users outside the US an “easy transition” to other platforms such as He Noones, his newly launched P2P platform for the Global South. said. 

• In a new blog post, Paxful explained, “During the suspension, the Paxful wallet remained fully functional for users, and the community was also provided with the option of a peer-to-peer platform to continue trading.” Founded in 2015 and launched in the United States, Paxful has focused its services on one of the world’s highest cryptocurrency adoption regions: Africa. 

Co-founder of loggerheads 

Youssef, meanwhile, was talking last month about shutting down the platform due to a lawsuit filed against him and the company by his co-founder Artur Schaback. Both executives also revealed to the outlet that their strained business relationship contributed to the move. Shabak, who worked as the company’s chief operating officer, accused Youssef of unfairly terminating access to company information and resources while on parental leave, but Youssef was accused of Shabak’s “incompetence and bad behaviour”. He added. 

Meanwhile, his Finnish-based Paxful competitor LocalBitcoins, whose P2P platform was shut down two months before it went offline, remains dormant. LocalBitcoins cited a “very cold crypto winter” for its decision.