With the shutdown of localbitcoins I had to branch out and look at other options for the rare occasions in my life that I need fiat in my life. I don't like switching platforms but in this case I had no choice since localbtc just out of nowhere decided to shut down after 10 years of being I think, the number one player in the game.
The sign up process at localcoinswap is extremely easy and that really appeals to me and probably most of the other people.
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I had a peek at localcoinswap in the past but it had a really low number of users in it and the offers were generally pretty sparse, especially in Vietnam where there were only one or two at any given time and they were generally offering 5-10% below market rate on BTC. This has changed a bit since localBTC shut down, but it still isn't really great at least not for Vietnam. Perhaps it is better in other areas but I honestly have no idea.
The major problem I have with it right now is the wait times and I don't think there is anything that they can personally do about that.
In localBTC for example, the escrow process was immediate and was pulled from funds you had already deposited. I know that it is not a good idea to keep your coins on an exchange like this, but if you wanted the transactions to happen quickly, that was just part of the deal. You had to take some chance or risk if you will. Generally I didn't keep any more than I planned on using that month in there and I never got burned.
in Localcoinswap the escrow process must be confirmed by the blockchain, and while I suppose this is more secure, the amount of time that this adds to your waiting is going to chase off a bunch of users. I have been staring at the above screen with zero interaction with the buyer for over 15 minutes now. While some people might consider this to be the "norm" those of us that have been using localBTC for years have grown impatient and this seems excessive.
Also, in localBTC the automatic cancellation of a trade in escrow would be 90 minutes from the moment it was initialized, in localcoinswap it is a full day. Thankfully, I have some traders that I already know from other platforms that I know I can trust so there wasn't a lot of dicking around.
The upsides of localcoinswap is that they have a very responsive push notification feature that can be easily integrated with Telegram, and I consider that to be a big plus, especially since the transactions are going to take long enough that I am probably not going to just sit at my computer waiting for them to go through. I got stuff to do in my life and am not going to stare at a progress box that isn't moving for an hour.
In the end, my quite small "test" transaction did in fact go through without a hitch, it was just incredibly time-consuming by my standards and I think the standards of most people who have grown accustomed to the speed in which transactions were possible in localBTC.
Total wait time for escrow confirmation 22 minutes .... I feel as though this is a bit excessive. I also used the fastest and most expensive confirmation method available.
So for users out there that are looking for an alternative to LocalBTC, I can't really say that localcoinswap is going to be a good match. Sure the interface is simple enough, as far as I can tell there really isn't a great deal of KYC or withdrawel limits (we'll find out about that later I guess because I can find zero documentation about it,) but the biggest caveat is that these individual transactions appear to take around an hour a piece, at least as far as selling / buying BTC is concerned.
I'll likely look into HodlHodl and Agoradesk next to see if they function in a faster way.