P2P bitcoin exchange Paxful reports $1.6B worth of trading volume for 2019

Peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin trading platform Paxful has reported $1.6 billion worth of global trading volume for 2019, driven by growth in Africa.

Paxful's African volumes increased by over 57% in 2019, while overall it has seen a "steady" growth of over 25% year-on-year since its inception in 2015.

The platform currently boasts of servicing over 3 million wallets, 45% of which are from Africa. Paxful hopes to further increase its volumes from the continent.

“We are very, very bullish on Africa,” said Artur Schaback, co-founder and COO of Paxful. “While many parts of the developed world are fixated on speculative activity in the crypto economy, people in Africa are teaching us about the true use cases of bitcoin and the opportunity it presents for greater financial inclusion of the under-banked.”

Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and Kenya are among its leading markets, said Paxful, adding that it also expects to grow in countries like Zambia and Uganda.

Paxful currently only supports bitcoin on its platform and wants to remain as a bitcoin-only platform, Schaback told The Block recently. The firm is “completely bootstrapped” and “profitable since its inception,” Schaback said at the time but declined to disclose the firm’s revenues and valuation.