In April, the marketplace closed indefinitely because of staffing problems with regulators

​P2P platform Paxful resumes its operation

09.05.2023 - 07:20

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2 min

What’s new? After a break of one month, the peer-to-peer (P2P) platform Paxful resumed operations. The company’s representatives noted that throughout the suspension period, Paxful Wallet remained fully accessible to all users, and the community was also offered several other peer-to-peer platforms to continue trading. “Over the last month, our team has worked diligently to get the marketplace back online with the safety and security of users paramount,” the press release says.

Announcement on the Paxful website

What is known about the platform? The international cryptocurrency trading platform was founded in 2015. On it, users can independently specify the price at which they want to buy digital assets. Counts more than 6 million users. In 2022 it was included in the ranking of the 100 most influential firms according to TIME magazine.

How did events develop? In early April, Paxful CEO Ray Youssef announced an indefinite suspension of the platform due to layoffs of key employees and increased pressure from US regulators on the industry. Back then he doubted the possibility of resuming operations.

The media speculated that the real reason for the closure was a court dispute between Youssef and the second Paxful co-founder Artur Schaback. They brought a number of charges against each other, including misappropriation of company funds, money laundering, and evading US sanctions against Russia.

Youssef later co-authored with Bitcoin researchers Nicholas Gregory and Antoine Riard and published a presentation on GitHub of Civilization Kit (Civ Kit), an anonymous peer-to-peer market. The platform will run on the Bitcoin network and use the Nostr and Lightning Network protocols. Youssef said that he plans to involve community members in the creation and funding of Civ Kit, calling the project the evolution of bitcoin.

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