Bitcoin marketplace Paxful is back in business and has reopened its doors after a temporary closure lasting about 1 month.
As a reminder, founded in 2015, Paxful is an American company specializing in crypto transactions via a peer-to-peer platform. It has mainly focused on the African market, where it has managed to attract about 6 million customers.
However on 06Apr 2023, Paxful’s founder Ray Youssef recently expressed uncertainty about the company’s future, saying that regulatory challenges in the U.S. were a major factor in this uncertainty. In addition, Youssef reported numerous departures of “key personnel” from the company, which added to the concern about Paxful’s ability to maintain its market position.
“Paxful’s senior staff was largely driven out of the company due to the actions of the unnamed co-founder’s legal team. The latter had refused to pay certain Paxful employees,” Decrypt reports.
As a result, Paxful was suspending operations due to employee departures and regulatory pressure.
However, after this one-month absence, the platform announced its return.
Paxful : We are back!
After a month’s absence, we are pleased to announce that the Paxful marketplace is back online […] Over the past month, our team has worked diligently to bring the marketplace back online with the safety and security of users,” the exchange wrote.
Although the platform provides few details, it appears that the platform was shut down following a dispute between its co-founders Artur Schaback and Ray Youssef.
On Coindesk, Schaback claimed that Youssef had taken steps to shut down Paxful.” His plan has been going on for almost 15 months, but through our civil proceedings in the U.S., it was discovered and foiled,” he said, noting that his partner was fired for “incompetence and bad behavior.”
However, while Paxful has managed to resolve the main reason for the shutdown, the company remains vulnerable. The new CEO will face several major challenges, including winning back customers who have turned to other competing platforms.
A matter to be followed closely….
