Now placed alongside LocalBitcoins and Bitsquare on coin.dance to be the main marketplaces for Bitcoin, the CEO of Paxful thinks transactions on his platform may be lower than those on the older markets but they are mainly mainstream Bitcoin purchases that represent an entirely new class of users.
Ray Youssef writes to Cointelegraph in an email:
“These users are 80 percent on mobile, the majority are unbanked and they do not have an interest in Bitcoin other than for paying for services that let them go about their business.”
He adds: “Paxful is the tip of the spear in onboarding these non-techy new Bitcoin users. Our support team is over 60 percent of our company and this is out of necessity. These new users need immense support and we constantly work their feedback into the core of our product.”
Coin.dance, which offers a community-driven Bitcoin statistics and services, currently puts LocalBitcoins’ weekly global volume at chasing $20 mln while Paxful is at over $2 mln and Bitsquare at about $30,000.
Bitsquare is a decentralized platform. Its transaction volume is likely to spike if and when situations around the world become more difficult for users to trade Bitcoins on centralized exchanges. Or when more users get to know the significance of its decentralized nature.
Bitcoin kiosk
For Paxful, the peer-to-peer marketplace built on open source, it is counting on the many more use cases that will manifest as Bitcoin advances further as a real financial solution for the masses to serve and increase its new class of users. Youssef cites one of such instances:
“Last year Bitcoin came to the rescue of the second biggest classifieds ads site in the world when they lost their merchant accounts for VISA and MasterCard. This was an epic win for Bitcoin and for Paxful as we processed more than half of BackPage’s total Bitcoin transactions but there is far more opportunity coming.”
The platform looks to its Bitcoin kiosk which offers a new widget that allows anyone to buy Bitcoin worldwide instantly with over 300 ways to pay including Paypal, Western Union, Amazon Gift Cards and iTunes Gift Cards to bring Bitcoin’s ultimate mission into fruition and to empower more people.
As it can be embedded within any website, blog, YouTube channel, mobile app, email subscriber list or a Facebook page to create a kiosk instantly and earn two percent commission from every sale made, the kiosk is expected to resolve the nightmare the unbanked face to get Bitcoin online and for quality Bitcoin content and app makers to stop having a tough time making revenue.
Youssef says: “It is a sad state of affairs if only those with a bank account can get bitcoin and only the exchanges are making any revenue. Bitcoin was supposed to empower the little guy and we have not forgotten that.”