Peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) marketplace Paxful announced on July 14 that its platform has witnessed another surge in trade volume, hitting the $4.6 billion mark and reaching over 4.5 million wallet registrations.
Paxful is also forecasting an additional two million users by the end of 2020, as the company is entering its 5th anniversary.
Emerging markets play a large role
Ray Youseff, the CEO of Paxful, noted that emerging markets in developing nations are a major factor in the platform’s recent growth.
He said, “When you look at our data, in Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya lead in terms of volume this year. Coming in fourth, and surprisingly one breakout country we’ve seen is Cameroon where we have $5M USD in volume (YTD 2020).”
Youseff said that Paxful has seen a significant uptick in the Indian crypto market since 2019, with trade volume increasing by 883% from $2.2 million to $22.1 million in 2020.
COVID-19 effects in P2P crypto trading activity
The CEO also stated that the worldwide coronavirus pandemic has had some effect on the platform’s growth. Investors have become more interested in non-traditional assets to protect their wealth as COVID-19 related closures rocked global markets.
He said, “In terms of the COVID-19 pandemic, while it has impacted usage of cryptocurrencies on our platform and more specifically the interest in a nontraditional monetary asset, we believe that the continued growth is more a result of the financial inequality that continues to plague the world.”
Cointelegraph reported on June 11 that P2P Bitcoin trading activity in the United States surged to a new all-time high during the week of June 7.
