• Paxful is shuttering operations and directing customers to withdraw and move their funds.
• Co-founder Ray Youssef has said that key staff departures as well as regulatory challenges make doing business untenable.
• It appears that tensions between Youssef and the other co-founder Artur Schaback could also be a cause for the shuttering.

Had William Shakespeare been around today, we like to think he’d start off a play about crypto the same way he started Richard III. That is to say, “Now is the winter of our discontent”.

Through several failings from the likes of FTX, innumerable pump and dump scams and rug pulls, folks have just stopped caring about cryptocurrency all that much.

Today, cryptocurrency exchange Paxful is winding down its operations and rather than leaving customers in limbo like FTX did, Paxful has said customers will be able to retrieve their funds.

Putting that aside for a minute, this shuttering comes as a shock but chief executive officer Ray Youssef, has outlined the reasons for the closure of the firm.

“While I cannot share the full story now, I can say that we unfortunately have had some key staff departures. Also, regulatory challenges for the industry continue to grow, especially in the peer-to-peer market and most heavily in the U.S. While we work through these issues, we have taken the most secure option and ask you to explore self-custody and trade elsewhere,” Youssef said of the closure.

According to some reports, the shuttering of the exchange comes amid tensions between founders Youssef and Artur Schaback. According to CoinDesk, Schaback filed a lawsuit against Youssef alleging he was shut out of the operation and “withholding key details about Paxful’s business dealings and making fraudulent fund transfers”.

The exchange had a popular presence in Africa. In 2020, the platform revealed that trading volumes increased by 57 percent in 2019. The firm had an established presence in Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.

Paxful customers have been directed to make use of self-custody solutions such as Exodus or Muun wallets. Further to this Youssef also recommends those in the “Global South” make use of Noones for their cryptocurrency needs.

At the very least, Paxful is letting customers secure their funds and while there is the potential for the company to be revived, directing customers to withdraw their funds is a sure sign that Paxful may be resigned to the annals of history.