Paxful restarts marketplace operations for the first time since April

Peer-to-peer crypto marketplace Paxful has announced it is back online after suspending operations in April.

In an update posted to its website, Paxful said its team had relaunched the marketplace after more than 30 days. Though the platform said its wallet had “remained fully operational” during the suspended service, it’s unclear how Paxful intends to move forward.

“Over the last month, our team has worked diligently to get the marketplace back online with the safety and security of users paramount,” said Paxful.

: Paxful is back online.

Over the next couple of days, we’ll be gradually restoring functionality to the marketplace.

Thank you to everyone for your support!

https://t.co/UApEgHxLg5

— Paxful (@paxful) May 8, 2023

Court records from March showed that Paxful CEO Ray Youssef and co-founder Artur Schaback lobbed allegations at each other over misappropriation of company funds, money laundering and evasion of United States sanctions against Russia, before the suspension of the marketplace’s operations. Youssef later said in a blog post there would be “key staff departures” and blamed the U.S. regulatory environment as his reasons for the shutdown.

I have finally moved my bitcoin off my paxful wallet. I helped as many people as I could before doing this. Now I am working on the trust to hold my shares and remedy affected users. Always self custody and do not keep funds on Paxful or any centralized exchange.

— Ray Youssef (@raypaxful) April 24, 2023

The platform has been largely silent on social media since the announcement, with Youssef saying in April he had made his “final act” as CEO in unfreezing 88% of certain users’ accounts — though he was still listed as CEO on the company’s website at the time of publication. Cointelegraph reached out to Paxful but did not receive an immediate response.

Amid Paxful’s suspended service, Youssef has reportedly been working with Block’s TBD division to launch a peer-to-peer crypto trading platform called Civilization Kit, or Civ Kit. According to its white paper, Civ Kit will be built on Nostr, the decentralized network enabling encrypted end-to-end private messaging.

Magazine: Journeys in Blockchain: Ray Youssef of Paxful