A Month After Closing Its Marketplace, Paxful Reopens It

The Paxful marketplace is back in business after having to close because of problems with regulations and disagreements within the company.

After shutting down in April 2023, the popular peer-to-peer (P2P) website Paxful is back online.

Even though the site was down, the Paxful Wallet was still working. Paxful said that the store would open again after being closed for a month. From the release, we can read:

“We know it has been a difficult time for many of our users, who were understandably surprised by the sudden suspension, however, we are delighted to be back so that we can continue to serve millions of people without financial access.”

The Bitcoin P2P auction closed in April 2023, but the wallet kept working. Before its problems became known, Paxful was one of the most popular peer-to-peer markets, with more than six million users around the world.

The former CEO and co-founder of Paxful, Ray Youssef, said that regulations for the P2P market were part of the reason why the marketplace closed. Youssef also said that key employees had left, and he added that a court fight between him and another co-founder, Artur Schaback, was another reason why the company had to be shut down.

Youssef called Schaback’s lawsuit “nasty,” saying that the executive sued both the former CEO and the company because he was angry. Soon after Paxful was shut down, Youssef said he was working on giving customers their money back out of his own pocket to escape going to jail.

Before the platform came back online, Paxful was able to unfreeze the accounts of 88% of its customers. Only 3% of its customers’ accounts were still frozen. On April 18, the CEO said he was leaving his role as leader.