www.paxful.com and
www.localbitcoins.com both allow for an escrow system for exchanging bitcoins for cash with peer to peer
What are your experiences with each?
Which do you prefer?
Thanks
Personally I'd prefer Localbitcoins over paxful any day. It's more established and more trusted, and there are more advertisements and better rates in general.
However, in terms of privacy I think that paxful may have the upper edge. Localbitcoins has recently implemented a verification system that forces you to submit ID once you reach a certain threshold of trading volume, on top of the fact that they already force you to verify if you want to place any ads.
This is the trade-off. It used to be a very obvious choice -- Localbitcoins, hands down. It has much more listings and also just a superior UI. But now that you need to do KYC with Localbitcoins
and individual traders are sometimes asking for ID, it sucks for privacy reasons.
Bisq is an option to trade without KYC, but volume is lacking.
Next time I need to do a P2P cash transaction, I'm probably going to try Paxful so I can avoid giving up my ID, but I'm not sure how long that'll last.
Wait a minute, LBC makes you KYC with them yeah, but with the individual traders? So if you do a transaction on there whoever you traded with has your dox info? That doesn't seem quite right. The in person meetings are there for just that option. No need to dox yourself over one bitcoin trade to some random person. Seems weird.