If you’re not too into online, centralized exchanges, perhaps this is what you’re looking for, so stick around for this short review.
What does it offer?
- An escrow and conflict-resolution service.
- A reputation system for both buyers and sellers, alongside their trading history.
- Several payment methods, including but not limited to Cash on Delivery, Cash via mail, PayPal, Webmoney, Western Union and Wire exchange.
What does the community think of it?
Fees
Pros & Cons
- Available in 249 countries.
- Supports over 100 fiat currencies.
- Easy to use and straight to the point.
- Excellent customer support.
- Highly secure.
- Lots of payment methods available.
- Low fees.
- The escrow and conflict-resolution service ensure that trades go as smooth as possible.
- Only supports bitcoin.
- Cash payment fees are slightly higher.
- Although user friendly, it requires them to be vigilant, as the decentralized and anonymous nature of it can attract some undesirable users.
To sum it up
LocalBitcoins is something different, aimed towards people looking for something more personal and straightforward than a centralized exchange, and although it doesn’t offer support for a lot of coins, the level of support they’ve offered for trading BTC around the globe with fiat currency is unparalleled, which is something worth praising. If you like what you’ve seen so far, be sure to check them out.
About LocalBitcoins
Throughout the years the company has had a smooth run with a few hiccups here and there, such as the security breach it suffered in April of 2014 where 30 bitcoins were stolen. Luckily, this event was a one-time occurrence and the loss wasn’t too big.
However, the company has run into issues throughout the years with several regulatory bodies across different countries and states, most notably Germany, New York and Russia. The first two forced LocalBitcoins to terminate their services in those locations, whereas in Russia, the service maintained operations by teaching its customers how to bypass the block that the executive agency for telecommunications in Russia had imposed.
Despite those issues, LocalBitcoins still became widely used cross 249 countries to be exact, and its popularity rose to the point that on December of 2017 registrations were temporarily disabled due to the platform experiencing record traffic.
