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Key facts:
At its highest point of the year, the platform has moved more than us $ 70.000.000 in a week.An increase of the personal data requires the platform could influence in the fall.The exchanges in bitcoins (BTC) through the platform of LocalBitcoins have fallen to their lowest levels since August of 2017. Weekly figures of trade in USD since the mid of the month of October of 2019 are below USD 40.000.000. Thus reflected in the data of the platform of peer exchange published in usefultulips.org.These numbers of trade not seen since mid-2017, months before the price of bitcoin reached its historical maximum, touching the USD 20,000 for each unit. UsefulTulips, which tracks the movements on LocalBitcoins, it shows the decline in the total value of the negotiations by a week on that platform. To do this, it uses data provided by the own LocalBitcoins, through its public API.At the end of June, the platform reached its maximum trade weekly of the year. During that last week of the month, users of LocalBitcoins and exchanged a total of USD 70.144.091 in BTC. Specifically, the week ending this Sunday, 17 November 2019, the users of the platform traded USD 35.442.271. The drop is almost 50% between both periods.From mid-2017, the interchange weekly at LocalBitcoins did not go down to USD 40 million. Source: UsefulTulips.The low levels of exchange on LocalBitcoins at the global level is also reflected in the local markets. Particularly, the venezuelan market has been dropping in terms of their volume in BTC or USD, despite the fact that the devaluation of the venezuelan currency generates continuous increases in the maximum historical trading in this currency, the bolivar.
So what has changed?
Among the possible reasons for the collapse of the negotiations in one of the trading platforms most commonly used in the ecosystem of bitcoin, highlights an increase in the requirements of its users ‘ personal information.During this year, the platform has updated its policy on “Know your customer” (Know your Customer or KYC), according to which the users must contribute each time more data to be able to operate normally.In July 2019, LocalBitcoins announced through their official blog the activation of a deadline for your customers to apegaran to the new regulations for verification of accounts. If the users were not updating their data on or before September 1, their accounts would be disabled, warned the statement.Another new feature that might influence is the removal of the option for its users to exchange bitcoins for cash in person. This possibility of exchange for physical the middle of the platform was cleared in early June, without further explanation. However, a couple of days after the announcement, LocalBitcoins spoke about it, ensuring that he had had to bend to regulations on money laundering and terrorist financing in force in Finland, a country where the platform has its institutional home.
Grows the competition
While the numbers are clearly decreasing in LocalBitcoins, bloom other platforms of P2P sharing present in the ecosystem. For example, data from coin.dance reflects a sustained increase in the platform Paxful.In that site, at the end of September 2019 was exceeded for the first time the barrier of USD 25.000.000 per week. In fact, the week of November 9, marked a new high for the platform above the USD 27.000.000.Another platform that is launched as a competitor to LocalBitcoins is LocalEthereum. The exchange site originally was dedicated exclusively to the trade of ETH, happen to be dedicated to the exchange of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The new platform, now called LocalCryptos, started including bitcoin in its offer of exchanges.Among the main attractions offered by LocalCryptos is a system of non-custodial, in which the user controls their private keys. Nor is the KYC, so that the users ‘ personal information will be kept private. In addition, those who decide to migrate to LocalCryptos will be able to maintain your reputation on LocalBitcoins, an advantage for merchants who have grown up within such a platform.