Paxful Closes Operations, Nigerian Crypto Community Feels Beaten

Paxful founder and CEO, Ray Youssef, stop Paxful surgery. (photo: twitter @raypaxful)

JAKARTA - Paxful, the peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency market, announced that it would halt operations on April 4. Paxful founder and CEO Ray Youssef said the decision was taken due to "the departure of key staff" and the regulatory environment.

Although Paxful is considered an alternative for Bitcoin users in Nigeria, this decision greatly affects the country's crypto community. Nigeria itself ranks eighth in the world in terms of crypto adoption and use according to the "The 2020 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report" report from Chainalysis.

Paxful is a platform that allows users in Nigeria to exchange gift cards from Amazon and Apple into Bitcoin. In addition, this platform helps users exchange digital currencies into cash or fiat currency, thus expanding the country's crypto industry.

Several members of the Paxful community in Nigeria said they felt they had lost their family when Paxful stopped operating. Nigerian crypto user Emmanuel Susegh even said that Paxful helped him earn USD 100,000 (IDR 1.5 billion), and the platform has been his digital currency exchange site since 2015.

However, some community members are concerned about returning funds to users. Ray Youssef himself confirmed via Paxful's official Twitter account that his team is working to complete user refunds.

Quoted from Cointelegraph, Paxful is a fairly popular P2P cryptocurrency trading platform, especially in developing countries. However, this decision has had a significant impact on the crypto user community in Nigeria and prompted them to look for other alternatives.