P2P Bitcoin Marketplace Paxful Reopens After Abrupt Closure

Paxful, the peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace, is back online after a month-long hiatus.

The platform was shut down in April allegedly due to a lawsuit filed by one of the co-founders, Artur Schaback, against the then-presiding CEO and another co-founder Ray Youssef in January 2023.

Youssef told Decrypt that “nasty” lawyers from Schaback drove key officials from the firm, crippling the workforce to a limit where it couldn’t function.

On April 10, a judge on Delaware Chancery Court appointed a legal custodian to oversee Paxful withdrawals for safeguarding customer funds.

Youssef resigned from the CEO’s position following the dispute and dissolution of the exchange on April 21. Before leaving, Youssef attempted to shrink the team to secure customer funds and process withdrawals smoothly.

The exchange officials noted in the reopening blog post on May 8, “Over the last month, our team has worked diligently to get the marketplace back online with the safety and security of users paramount.”

However, it did not provide an update on the firm’s leadership or ongoing lawsuit. The sudden reopening of the exchange has surprised some industry participants.

The platform has more than 6 million registered users and has cumulatively facilitated over $6 billion in trades since its launch in 2015 with significant popularity in South America, Africa, and India.