Paxful
0.0/10 total
This service no longer exists. It is kept in the table so that outdated guides recommending it can be checked against reality. Treat any site currently using this name as hostile.
Wound down. Paxful announced closure on 1 October 2025 and shut the marketplace by 1 November 2025, blaming the lasting damage from its co-founders' conduct and the cost of compliance remediation rather than insolvency. It had already suspended the marketplace once on 4 April 2023 during the Youssef-Schaback dispute before reopening in May 2023. Co-founder and former CTO Artur Schaback pleaded guilty on 8 July 2024 in the Eastern District of California to conspiracy to fail to maintain an effective AML programme; Paxful Holdings Inc. pleaded guilty to three federal conspiracy counts on 9 December 2025 and was sentenced on 11 February 2026 to a $4m criminal penalty, reduced from an agreed $112.5m on ability to pay. Co-founder Ray Youssef was indicted days after the corporate plea.
Scores
Weights are published in the method and applied identically to every entry.
For
Nothing that still applies.
Against
- Marketplace closed on 1 November 2025; deposits and trading are off and only withdrawals ran during the wind-down
- paxful.com still resolves but serves an error page, not a functioning marketplace or a clear notice
- The corporate entity and both co-founders are convicted or charged in US federal court over AML failures
- Any guide still listing Paxful as a working no-KYC venue is describing a platform that stopped requiring KYC years before it stopped existing
Agent access 0/10
Defunct. The former Paxful API is gone and the domain returns an error page.
Reported separately and not counted in the total. It measures what an autonomous agent can do unattended, not whether the service is safe to use.
Fees
n/a
Defunct. Historically sellers paid roughly 1% on most payment methods and up to 5% on gift cards, with buyers paying nothing; none of it applies now.
Specification
- Type
- Peer-to-peer
- KYC policy
- KYC required
- Custody model
- custodial
- Account required
- yes
- Assets
- n/a
- Chains
- n/a
- Operating since
- 2015
- Jurisdiction
- Panama
- Onion service
- no
- Works without JS
- no
- Open source
- no
- Facts checked
- 2026-07-31