The announcement comes after a chaotic year 2022 for the crypto industry.
LocalBitcoins weekly volumes have dropped sharply from highs recorded in 2017.
LocalBitcoins, a Finland-based peer-to-peer (P2P) Bitcoin (BTC) exchange founded in June 2012, has announced the timeline for the closure of its Bitcoin trading services. The exchange announced the development on Thursday in a statement on its website.
This article was written by Solomon Oladipupo and originally published by Finance Magnates.
The operator noted that LocalBitcoins can longer provide its BTC trading services as its efforts to weather “the ongoing very crypto winter” has been futile. The announcement comes after a chaotic 2022 saw the crypto industry battle with the collapse of several crypto projects, including once-leading Bahamas-based crypto exchange, FTX.
Due to prolonged crypto winter or sustained declining prices of digital assets and other factors, the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency industry collapsed by 64.1% from $2.3 trillion at the start of last year to $829 billion by year-end.
“We are sad to share that regardless of our efforts to overcome challenges during the ongoing very cold crypto winter, we have regretfully concluded that LocalBitcoins can no longer provide its Bitcoin trading service,” LocalBitcoins announced.