Perhaps the only true competitor to LocalBitcoins to date, Paxful is a peer-to-peer trading platform that continues to innovate on the model.
The model, of course, is that of acting as an escrow between buyers and sellers of Bitcoin.
Paxful Making Big Moves
LocalBitcoins is the oldest and largest player in the field. However, Paxful has slowly established itself as a leader in the industry, and its next move is significant.
In a message sent to users in January through the support window, Paxful announces that it’s playing host to a number of new types of services.
Presumably services and goods will still be sold on escrow – but they will be available, on a peer-to-peer basis, just like everything else on the platform.
This essentially means that you can sell whatever you like for Bitcoin, according to the message:
We’ve changed the “Sell Bitcoin” button to “Spend Bitcoin” on our homepage! In the future, we plan to provide you different ways to use BTC. You are still and will always be able to sell your bitcoin by clicking on the “Spend” button and this will never change! Maybe now is the perfect time to make your first offer to sell something for Bitcoin, Soon you can even sell your car in our “goods and services” section.
Gift Cards Most Popular Trade on Paxful
According to the Paxful website, the top trading methods of the week were Amazon, Steam, eBay, and iTunes gift cards.
Amazon gift cards accounted for over $5 million in volume, with Steam coming in at over $4 million.
Paxful’s new feature could spur a whole new wave of people entering crypto by selling their goods and services. In turn, these people can then hold or sell their BTC on the platform. That means that if they’re savvy, they can wait for the price to rise, and then sell it for more than the cost of the goods or services they traded.
Of course, if Paxful is successful, others will likely build on the model. Paxful and LocalBitcoins are far from the only players these days, with exchanges like Hodl Hodl and Bitcoin.com having cropped up.
Peer-to-peer trading is a better way to gauge the health of the market. When demand is strong on markets like Paxful, then the overall market is pretty healthy. At this point, the most active markets are gift cards. Goods and services are just an upgrade from there, so it will be interesting to see what category of either becomes most popular.
