Paxful Review: Pros and Cons of the P2P Exchange
Paxful is a decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace that offers fee-free cryptocurrency trading without middlemen. However, before diving into such a promising platform, it's crucial to consider both its advantages and drawbacks.
What is Paxful?
Paxful isn't a traditional crypto exchange. Instead, it functions primarily as a P2P platform, facilitating swift and anonymous cryptocurrency transactions.Though the platform only supports three cryptocurrencies, it boasts an expansive choice of 350 payment methods.
For traders seeking analytical tools, leverage, and typical trading pairs, Paxful might not be the right fit. Instead, it caters to investors aiming to effortlessly enrich their portfolios with leading market assets: BTC, ETH, and USDT. Engaging with Paxful is straightforward: peruse listings from other users or put up one of your own.
Advantages of Paxful
Paxful boasts a range of impressive features:
- Operates in 21 countries worldwide.
- Offers a multilingual platform.
- Sets the bar low with a $1 minimum deposit.
- Accepts almost all major global fiat currencies for buying cryptocurrency.
- Allows payments through bank cards, various payment operators, and crypto wallets.
- Requires minimal verification - just an email address.
- Provides a convenient tool for filtering by cryptocurrency type, available payment methods, and the amount of purchase or sale.
- Charges no commission on buying assets.
- Incorporates a user reputation system, similar to eBay's approach.
- Designed with a clear and user-friendly interface.
In addition, Paxful offers a free BTC wallet with BitGo support. Their lucrative referral program is also worth noting. By directing users to sign up via your referral link, you can earn 50% of the commission from their trades. Plus, you can gain an additional 10% from the commissions of users brought in by your referrals.
Many platform users suggest that the referral program alone can be a substantial income source, even without direct trading. And since using a referral link bypasses the typical verification process, newcomers are keen to utilize them.
Drawbacks of Paxful
In addition to the limited selection of tradable assets, Paxful has some other significant shortcomings:
- Variable commission on sales, fluctuating between 0.5% and 5%, depending on the specific asset sold.
- Inefficient customer support. The chatbot often doesn't address all concerns, and email responses are notably slow.
- The platform primarily focuses on users from the USA (excluding certain states), Nigeria, India, China, and Russia. The apparent non-compliance with international sanctions potentially leaves users in a precarious position.
A primary concern with Paxful is the heightened risk of fraud. Without mandatory trader identity verification, it has inadvertently attracted a myriad of small fraudsters. For transactions under $1,000, the platform doesn't even request the client's phone number. More extensive verifications, including address and document scans, are reserved for deals over $50,000.
Even with an escrow system in place, scams on Paxful aren't rare.An independent review of the platform's main aspects underscores these concerns.
Paxful struggles with user trustworthiness. Source: fool
Alternatives to Paxful
If you're wary of using centralized exchanges to purchase and sell cryptocurrencies, there are peer-to-peer platforms that boast a higher security than Paxful.
We recommend diving into the features of top-rated P2P apps like:
