Breaking: LocalBitcoins To Close Service, Crypto Community Distraught

LocalBitcoins News: Bitcoin exchange platform LocalBitcoins on Thursday announced its decision to shut down its service. The update came as a sad news for long time Bitcoin traders as the service has been around for the last ten years. The platform cited the bad market conditions in the ongoing crypto winter for its decision to discontinue the service. With the very cold crypto winter, volumes and market share had declined, leading to the decision, it said.

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LocalBitcoins Shutting Down

The platform is giving customers a time period of 12 months to withdraw their funds from the wallets. The company said in the announcement the ongoing market scenario was not favorable to any recovery. With a customer base of 8 million, the platform is spread out in over 190 countries. The crypto community is expressing sadness over the shutting down of one of the oldest Bitcoin marketplace platforms.

“Regardless of our efforts to overcome various challenges during the ongoing, very cold crypto winter, during which our volumes and market share have continued to decline, we’ve regretfully concluded that LocalBitcoins can no longer provide a trading service.”

On the other side, it is argued that LocalBitcoins is shutting to get rid of the operational risks in the current environment. LocalBitcoins was mentioned in the recent Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) report involving Bitzlato transactions. In the FinCEN document, LocalBitcoins is mentioned as one of Bitzlato’s top three counterparties. The Bitcoin exchange platform was described as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) based or incorporated in Finland, in the document.

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