LocalBitcoins Officially Announces Removal of Local Cash Trade Option Citing AML and KYC Reasons

Earlier today, on Twitter, P2P crypto exchange LocalBitcoins confirmed that they removed cash trading on their platform. Prior to the removal, users of LocalBitcoins could select “In-person: Cash” as an option when buying or selling bitcoins.

Note on the removal of Local Cash Ads pic.twitter.com/ue2YBYErTY

— LocalBitcoins.com (@LocalBitcoins) June 4, 2019

The company writes:

“In order to adapt to the current regulatory environment, we had to reconsider our policy on local cash trades as well as on geographical areas where our service is available, among other platform features. As a consequence, advertisements in the cash category (i.e. local cash trades) were disabled in our platform on Saturday 1st June.”

Executives from the company had earlier refrained from publicly commenting on the move, which follows a slow process of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) implementation. This might have been done to comply with tightening Finnish crypto laws.

Many users are not too pleased with this move. A Reddit user writes:

“Localbitcoins used to be fine to use but nowadays the amount of requirements and verifications to comply with money launder laws made the experience pretty trashy. I was banned two times before I completely stopped using their services. Besides, the Privacy and TOS change every month.”

They further write:

“Meeting in person is one of the oldest ways to exchange between crypto and fiat, and it remains one of the safest. As long as you follow simple guidelines, it’s incredibly rare for anything to go wrong.”

LocalBitcoins is accessible in 248 countries and 7571 cities. Just last week, LocalBitcoins has facilitated $58 million in bitcoin trades. In February, the platform announced that it would comply with the new anti-money laundering directive enacted by the European Union, adding KYC processes for its users.