After shutdown Bitcoin platform Paxful to pay Nigeria’s 1.5 million users

After shutdown Bitcoin platform Paxful to pay Nigeria’s 1.5 million users

 

Co-founder of a peer-to-peer Bitcoin platform, Paxful, with 1.5 million users in Nigeria, says he is working on a plan to reimburse their funds using his own money in an effort to comply with the law and avoid getting into deeper legal issues following the sudden shutdown of his exchange.

Paxful last Tuesday announced that it was shutting down its operations as disclosed by Youssef in a blog post.

He said, “Today, Paxful will be suspending its marketplace. We are not sure if it will come back.

In his latest message, Youssef stated that he was at risk of going to jail for failing to comply with court orders concerning the return of Paxful’s frozen funds, which led him to take such a drastic measure.

The Paxful co-founder explained he was taking such a risk because otherwise funds might “fall into oblivion,” and users might never be able to recover them.

However, he asked the community for patience while carrying out this task.

Youssef had earlier said during a Twitter Space said that the decision to close the platform was also influenced by a lawsuit brought by a Paxful co-founder who is suing Paxful and Youssef after being “kicked out of the company” over a year ago.

“My co-founder sued the company and sued me. I have a lawsuit over my head right now,” he was quoted as saying on the Twitter Space.

Though he did not name the plaintiff explicitly, Youssef is likely referring to co-founder Artur Schaback, who filed a lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court against Youssef in January, based on a court docket hosted on CourtConnect.

Nigeria is ranked eighth in crypto adoption and usage among 154 countries even though the transaction remains banned officially in the country.

Lagos and Ibadan have been listed as cryptocurrency hubs across the globe by crypto accounting services firm, Recap, which put together a list of the top 50 crypto hubs in 2022.

Paxful is credited with pioneering the use of peer-to-peer technology in the country, thus helping to expand the crypto industry in Nigeria.

In an interview with Business Africa Insider in 2022, Paxful’s CEO said that Nigeria is the firm’s largest market, with 1.5 million users and over $1.5 billion volume to date (since 2015).