By: Ofir Beigel | Final up to date: 4/10/23
Paxful is a web based market which permits patrons and sellers to fulfill on-line and commerce Bitcoins. Just like LocalBitcoins, Paxful permits a variety of fee strategies and shopping for choices which might’t be discovered on conventional exchanges.
On this put up I’ll assessment the corporate and its providers. I may also examine the service to LocalBitcoins, its in style competitor.
Paxful Evaluate Abstract
Paxful brings customers the power to purchase Bitcoins with virtually any conceivable fee methodology. The person expertise is extraordinarily intuitive.
Whereas every thing appears fairly neat there are nonetheless some belongings you’ll must look out for like learn how to keep away from scams and get a good alternate price (see particulars on each under).
April 2023 replace:
As a consequence of key workers departures and regulatory points, Paxful is suspending its operations, presumably indefinitely. Paxful’s CEO, Ray Youssef, has dedicated to enabling customers to withdraw their remaining funds from the platform.
If you’d like a extra detailed assessment of Paxful carry on studying, right here’s what I’ll cowl:
- Firm Overview
- Paxful Providers
- Currencies and Cost Strategies
- Paxful Charges
- Shopping for Limits
- Supported Nations
- Buyer Assist and Person Opinions
- Paxful vs. LocalBitcoins
- How one can Use Paxful Safely?
- Steadily Requested Questions
- Conclusion – Is Paxful Legit?
1. Firm Overview
Based in 2015 with places of work in a number of cities all over the world (HQ is within the US) and over 200 staff, Paxful goals to be the “Uber” of the Bitcoin group. Paxful allows people to change into retailers and promote Bitcoin on-line, much like how eBay permits individuals to promote merchandise.
Paxful additionally provides an amazing different for patrons, since typically conventional exchanges simply don’t lower it.
Whereas most exchanges endure from geographic restrictions or restricted fee strategies, Paxful is freed from each, giving the facility for buying and selling Bitcoins again to the individuals and permitting for a extra decentralized buying and selling market.
Paxful additionally provides a fee processing service for web sites, which allows retailers to extra simply settle for all kinds of fee strategies.
2. Paxful Providers
Paxful provides their market service in two kinds:
- On their web site by way of a straightforward to make use of kind
- Through a “digital kiosk hyperlink” that any individual or web site proprietor can use.
The digital kiosk is mainly Paxful’s associates program, permitting individuals to unfold the phrase about Paxful whereas producing a 2% income from any quantity purchased.
Paxful additionally provides “Pay with Paxful”, a fee processing function which will be added to web sites. This permits retailers to simply accept any one in every of Paxful’s 300+ fee choices by way of a Paxful widget on their web site.
How one can Purchase Bitcoins on Paxful
- Select the quantity of Bitcoins you need to purchase
- Select the foreign money you need the alternate price to be in
- Choose a fee methodology (there are dozens)
- Select a vendor and click on “Commerce”
- Observe directions for fee and click on “Mark as paid”
- Await the vendor to launch the Bitcoins
It’s price mentioning that some trades will be concluded immediately whereas others may take longer, relying on the fee methodology and whether or not the vendor is on-line or not.
Paypal and present playing cards, for instance, are prompt. Financial institution deposits, Western Union and Moneygram can take a while, as you will need to go away your property to their department to deposit money.
Escrow
Paxful additionally supplies an escrow service for all Bitcoin transactions. As soon as a purchaser finds a vendor and the supply is accepted by the vendor, the Bitcoin are routinely moved from the seller’s pockets to escrow.
At this level, the vendor can’t cancel the commerce. Nonetheless, the customer has a restricted timeframe to ship the cash to the vendor and mark the fee as ‘full. If the customer fails to try this within the given timeframe, the deal might be auto-cancelled and the Bitcoin might be returned to the vendor’s pockets.
When each the customer and the vendor have verified that the transaction has been confirmed and all of the phrases have been met, the cash might be launched to the customer’s pockets and the deal might be concluded.
If at any level there might be a disagreement between the 2 events, the method will transfer alongside to dispute.
Paxful moderators will then examine all the data, contemplate all of the accessible particulars and at last decide to whom the bitcoins might be awarded.
Having mentioned that, generally transactions undergo easily due to Paxful’s intense moderation that clamps down on potential scammers.
3. Currencies and Cost Strategies
Paxful offers with the shopping for and promoting of Bitcoin solely. For the reason that cash is distributed on to the sellers, the positioning itself doesn’t maintain fiat currencies for customers.
Sellers on Paxful settle for over 300 fee strategies, with the most well-liked ones being bank cards, PayPal, Amazon present playing cards, wire transfers and Western Union.
Needless to say totally different fee strategies will lead to totally different alternate charges. For instance, non refundable fee strategies (financial institution transfers, money) will often have decrease alternate charges whereas fee strategies that enable for chargebacks (i.e. bank cards, PayPal) will price extra.
4. Paxful Charges
In case you’re shopping for Bitcoins on Paxful, you gained’t should pay any charge to the positioning itself. Completely different sellers, nonetheless, might cost charges or a premium, relying in your fee methodology as I’ve said earlier than.
Sellers on Paxful pay a 1% charge to the corporate.
Moreover, there are regular Bitcoin community charges that are paid by the sender, as a way to switch cash via the community. These charges don’t go to Paxful however to Bitcoin miners.
5. Shopping for Limits
Paxful has 4 verification ranges, every one with totally different limits:
- Degree 1 – Electronic mail and telephone verification. Restrict is $1,000.
- Degree 2 – Degree 1 necessities + ID verification. Restrict is $10,000.
- Degree 3 – Degree 2 necessities + deal with verification. Restrict is $50,000.
- Degree 4 – Degree 3 necessities + enhanced due diligence. No restrict for this degree.
Customers from the US are required to finish ranges 1, 2 and three to commerce on Paxful in any respect, whereas customers from the EU and Canada should full not less than ranges 1 and a pair of, in addition to 3 in the event that they want to withdraw any funds.
6. Supported international locations
Paxful is obtainable worldwide apart from the next international locations:
Burundi, Central African Republic Sanctions, Cuba, Crimea area, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, North Korea, Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan-related Sanctions, Sudan and Darfur, Syria, Yemen
7. Buyer Assist and Person Opinions
Paxful has a comparatively in depth FAQ, though I discovered it to be considerably outdated. Some pages have been simply lacking after I clicked their hyperlink and there was even a excessive Bitcoin mining charge warning that wasn’t up to date since March 2017.
Alternatively, there’s a very simple to make use of chat field for all related assist requests. Assist representatives both reply instantly or reply later by way of e-mail.
Most unfavorable opinions about Paxful on Trustpilot are to do with unverfied customers from the US and the EU having their funds “caught” on Paxful, resulting from not understanding they’d to offer full identification to withdraw.
Different unfavorable opinions are about particular sellers which have scammed patrons and never concerning the platform itself. Avoiding rip-off on Paxful is certainly a problem that must be taken into consideration (extra on that later on this put up).
Each of the above issues can usually be prevented with a bit warning and customary sense.
Except for these two widespread points, the Paxful expertise seems to be very clean and pleasurable for many customers.
8. Paxful vs. LocalBitcoins
Paxful’s essential competitor is undoubtedly LocalBitcoins, the same market that has been round since 2012.
Paxful seems to have caught as much as LocalBitcoins in international buying and selling quantity during the last 12 months, regardless of LocalBitcoins beforehand having a a lot bigger market share. Whereas LocalBitcoins has been round longer, Paxful appears to be crushing it with regards to buyer satisfaction.
9. How one can Use Paxful Safely
From studying on-line opinions about Paxful, it’s apparent that some individuals mistake the platform’s integrity for the vendor’s integrity. Which means, if a vendor scammed them or was not reliable, they assume the platform isn’t legit as properly.
That’s why I wished to level out some assets that will make it easier to resolve any points when shopping for Bitcoins via Paxful:
- It’s higher to make use of Paxful’s really helpful sellers as they’ve higher fame and subsequently are often not scammers.
- By no means conduct communications outdoors of Paxful and ensure every thing is documented inside the system, so moderators might be ready that can assist you in case of a dispute.
- Guarantee that the person you might be buying and selling with is on-line, as un-answered orders auto cancel in a brief time frame and if the vendor isn’t on-line which may be annoying.
- Launch the fee from escrow solely when you’ve full management over the fee you obtain i.e. it’s confirmed and in your account. Don’t launch the Bitcoin from escrow for “Pending”, or some other related standing.
- It doesn’t matter what web site, what system, what person, what nation, what ANYTHING, In case you can not afford to lose cash, DO NOT SEND IT.
10. Steadily Requested Questions
Is Paxful Legit?
There are many debates on-line whether or not Paxful is legit or not. In my private opinion Paxful is legit, nonetheless there could also be customers on Paxful making an attempt to rip-off you. That is true for each different P2P market on the market like eBay, LocalBitcoins and OpenBazar.
The place is Paxful Situated?
Paxful has a number of places of work in New York Metropolis USA, Hong Kong, Tallinn Estonia and Manila Philippines. Their mailing deal with is 3422 Outdated Capitol Path PMB# 989 Wilmington DE 19808, USA.
11. Conclusion – Is Paxful Legit?
Paxful brings customers the power to purchase Bitcoins with virtually any conceivable fee methodology. The person expertise is extraordinarily intuitive and whereas every thing appears fairly neat there are nonetheless some belongings you’ll must look out for.
First, be sure to’re getting a good alternate price. Relying in your fee methodology, the alternate price can typically attain 2x of the “official” worth of Bitcoin that may be discovered on conventional exchanges.
Second, ensure that your vendor has sufficient fame and has performed sufficient trades in his previous to keep away from getting scammed. So long as you might be conscious of those two factors, the platform provides a strong answer for buying (and promoting) Bitcoins.
Have you ever used Paxful? I’d love to listen to about your expertise within the remark part under.
Paxful
Free
Execs
- Extensive number of fee strategies
- Responsive assist discussion board
- Nice person suggestions
Cons
- Excessive alternate charges
- Risk of rip-off