Paxful, a peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplace, has announced its official 2019 growth metrics
On the heels of a November high, the company saw nearly US$30mn in P2P Bitcoin trades, a steady uphill trend since the platform’s inception in 2015.
Bitcoin steadily moves mainstream
Paxful has seen significant growth since inception. In 2015, the platform reported US$5.9mn in trade volume which has steadily increased by 25 per cent or more y-o-y.
At the close of 2017, they reported more than US$500mn in trade volume, with 2019 tripling that number closing at more than US$1.6bn. In addition, they have seen one million wallets added in the past year, which is a vast difference from the 97K opened in 2015. Recently, Paxful reported having more than three million wallets registered on the platform.
Artur Schaback, COO and co-founder of Paxful, said, “We started initially as a payment processor for brick & mortar merchants. The product was great and it worked with the few merchants we had but there was still the unsolved problem of an easy way of buying bitcoin.
“That’s how Paxful was born, we realised peer-to-peer was still in its infancy and had a lot of room for improvement. Who would’ve thought that as we celebrate our 5th year in 2020, we would have over 200 employees across four global offices united in building this peer-to-peer marketplace for people around the world.”
Emerging markets accelerate platform growth
According to Paxful’s data team, Ghana and India, and Nigeria lead in emerging market usage. Ghana alone has seen 33K new users join the platform in 2019, while South Africa remains one of the top markets for Paxful on the continent. Trade volume in new markets has also seen significant growth with Hong Kong reporting a 132 per cent increase y-o-y, Vietnam coming in at 200 per cent, and Indonesia with a striking 400 per cent increase since 2018.
Speculation is not the future of bitcoin
Utility is the future of cryptocurrency and as people begin to understand the use cases of bitcoin and incorporate them into their everyday lives, its mainstream adoption becomes vast and apparent. With remittance providing users in Europe, Africa, Asia, and beyond a chance at financial freedom, they are obtaining more value for their money while P2P finance works to solve liquidity problems for entire countries.
Ray Youssef CEO and co-founder of Paxful, commented, “Now, we’re changing the face of personal finance using the power of peer-to-peer transactions. I remember being homeless in New York helping a single mother buy her first bitcoin. It was a struggle for her to copy and paste a bitcoin address.
“Our mission is to help the ‘little guys’ and that means building a product with them in mind. We’re working hard and doing everything we can for a future where every person on this earth has a chance at financial freedom.”
Ending the year with an industry leading partnership
Paxful has announced a partnership with leading global cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume and users Binance. The integration will allow Binance users to utilise Paxful’s peer-to-peer trading network directly on Binance.com to buy Bitcoin (BTC) with 167 various fiat currencies. The integration will also allow users to make payments via Paxful on the Binance platform.
“Paxful is proud to be partnering with Binance in our joint efforts to bring bitcoin to the masses. They share our passion and vision for the global crypto economy and we’re excited to see how this union will spur more financial access, and consequently, opportunities, for people everywhere,” said Youssef.
