Paxful, a leading peer-to-peer bitcoin (BTC) marketplace that aims to provide financial inclusion around the globe, announced on 14th July it had hit $4.6 billion in trade volume and reached 4.5 million wallet registrations. Additionally, as it embarks on 5th year in service, it has released historical data that outlines the progression of peer-to-peer marketplaces over time.
Once reputed to be a breeding ground for fraudulent activity, peer-to-peer marketplaces are now one of the most dependable platforms for buying and selling Bitcoin. Paxful has achieved a less than 1% dispute proportion and enabled people to perform financial transactions online seamlessly. This has reduced the dependency of many on the traditional banking sector and has allowed for quicker and cheaper transactions for users globally.
Paxful data highlights the progress of the peer-to-peer business model and its development towards becoming one of the safest and leading peer-to-peer marketplaces to trade BTC.
Peer-to-peer business model
As of July 2020, Paxful had hit 4.5 million registered wallets, reached $4.6 billion in trading volume, and reduced dispute levels to under 1%. The average dispute rate for all the countries with a minimum of 1,000 trades was a mere 0.025 in 2019 and it took 56 trades before encountering a dispute.
Since inception, Paxful has added one million users per year so far in 2020 and on track to sign up an additional two million by the end of the year. These growth numbers can be attributed to high inflation rates, weak national currencies, inadequate financial infrastructures, and growing economic uncertainty.
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“We built Paxful to help the little guy and create wealth for those who need it most. There are people who live with restrictions and limitations we cannot imagine. For true financial inclusion to happen, it requires a free market for money transfers,” said Ray Youssef, CEO and co-founder of Paxful. “The company aligns with the original mission of bitcoin as I felt that we need to give humanity a people-powered marketplace. ”
Taking a deeper look at the evolution and adoption of peer-to-peer crypto platforms, Paxful’s year-over-year growth moved from $100K in trade volume in July 2015, to its first $1 million in October the same year. It was then followed by 10 million in trade volume in February 2016 and hit the first 100 million in trade volume in January 2017. The first billion in USD trade volume was in May 2018. Currently, the average amount per trade is $102 — more than twice the average in 2015 which was $45 USD.
Upward growth trend
This year alone, during the first half of 2020, the platform has seen growth in line with the upward trends of increased users and volume growth that they have seen over the past 5 years in business. Paxful saw a 34% increase in volume when comparing H1 of 2019 to H1 of 2020. This year has also seen over $182M in volumes each month. Compared to 2019, in which the marketplace saw 488,000 new users during H1, 2020 has seen over 1.1M new users, an increase of 130%.
“We are a people-focused company and we use blockchain technology in the best possible way to benefit those who need it most. We learned so much in the past 5 years of staying connected to the streets and we will continue to build products to accelerate the process of financial inclusion. This growth is just the beginning for the world of peer-to-peer finance,” said Artur Schaback, COO and co-founder.
For true financial inclusion to happen, it requires a free market for money transfers.
Ray Youssef, CEO and co-founder of Paxful.
The leading markets are Nigeria, the USA, Ghana, India, and Kenya. More than 44.4 million successful marketplace trades have taken place on Paxful.
Additional achievements and milestones reached include its #BuiltWithBitcoin charitable initiative, which has resulted in the building of three schools in Africa that has helped 500 students and their families, a scholarship program, and a fund to help countries in Africa in the fight against COVID-19. From two formerly homeless founders, Paxful has grown to 265 employees spread out across three offices.
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