What LocalBitcoins is
LocalBitcoins.com was launched in 2012, created by Jeremias Kangas and developed with his brother Nikolaus, and was based in Helsinki. It was a peer-to-peer marketplace: it did not sell bitcoin itself, but hosted the adverts in which users offered to buy or sell it, setting the price and the payment method, from bank transfers to cash. During a trade the platform held the bitcoin being sold in escrow and took a fee; it also offered an online wallet. In 2019 it reported around half a million monthly active users. It announced its closure on 9 February 2023. The site belongs to LocalBitcoins Oy.
Regulation and licences
(Verified: October 2026)
- MiCA: NO — LocalBitcoins Oy does not appear in the ESMA register of authorised providers (CASPs). It still holds customers' balances in custody, and its fee schedule states that it is not collecting the maintenance fee from 1 July 2025 "until the company has acquired the relevant regulatory license".
- Finland: from 31 October 2019 it was registered with the Finnish financial authority (FIN-FSA) as a virtual currency provider. On 2 June 2025 the FIN-FSA imposed a penalty of 500,000 euros on it (decision FIVA/2025/439) for failing to identify and verify 155,177 customers between 1 November 2019 and 30 June 2022: they were customers on the entry-level "Tier 0" (less than 1,000 euros in annual volume), whom the company regarded as occasional. The decision could be appealed before the Helsinki Administrative Court.
- CONSOB warning (23 May 2022): in the newsletter "Consob Informa" no. 18/2022, CONSOB (Italy's securities regulator) relayed a list from the British Columbia Securities Commission (Canada) of entities lacking the required authorisations, including "Localbitcoins" (localbitcoins.com). There are no blocking orders on record.
Security
- 26 January 2019: for almost five hours the forum redirected to a fake login page that harvested passwords and two-factor authentication codes. The company disabled the forum, temporarily suspended transactions and attributed the attack to third-party software. It identified six affected accounts; according to ZDNet, based on an address reported by the victims, around 7.95 bitcoin (then about 28,200 dollars) appear to have been stolen.
- According to the company, customers' bitcoin is now kept separate from its own assets and stored largely offline.
Headquarters and contacts
- LocalBitcoins Oy, a Finnish company, business ID (Y-tunnus) 2855415-2: according to the trade register it has been registered since 1 February 2018 and was still registered on 26 October 2026. Postal address: Firdonkatu 2 T 63, 00520 Helsinki.
Alternatives
For anyone looking for a similar service that is operating and authorised in the EU (these are exchanges, not peer-to-peer marketplaces):
- Kraken — MiCA licence from the Central Bank of Ireland (25 June 2025).
- Bitstamp — MiCA licence from Luxembourg's CSSF (15 May 2025).
FAQ
Is LocalBitcoins still active? No: trading has been halted since 16 February 2023 and the site serves only to withdraw remaining balances (Verified: October 2026).
Can I still recover bitcoin left on LocalBitcoins? According to the operator, yes: you log in to localbitcoins.com, complete identity verification (Tier 1 level) and withdraw the entire balance to a personal bitcoin wallet, with processing times of up to two months and the network fee. For now no maintenance fee is charged, but the administration fee on accounts closed for more than a year still applies. Should the business cease, which the company says it does not foresee, the terms updated on 26 June 2026 allow unclaimed bitcoin to be transferred to another authorised provider or sold under Finnish law (Verified: October 2026).
Why did LocalBitcoins close? In its announcement the company cited the "very cold crypto-winter"; chief executive Nikolaus Kangas added to Cointelegraph that the declining volumes and market share had not returned to growth.
Verified sources
- https://localbitcoins.com/
- https://localbitcoins.com/faq
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230209083741/https://localbitcoins.com/service_closure/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230530214128/https://localbitcoins.com/blog/localbitcoins-na
- https://www.finanssivalvonta.fi/globalassets/fi/finanssivalvonta/toimivalta-ja-rahoitus/to
- https://www.consob.it/web/area-pubblica/-/comunicazione-del-2022-05-23
- https://cointelegraph.com/news/localbitcoins-closes-down-the-p2p-crypto-exchange-service
- https://www.zdnet.com/article/localbitcoins-blames-security-breach-on-forum-third-party-so
