Paxful CEO announces unfreezing of 88% of accounts

On 16 April, Paxful CEO Ray Youssef announced that 88% of user accounts on the P2P cryptocurrency trading platform had been unfrozen.

It is done! 88% of all frozen accounts have been UNfrozen. 10 days, 3 scripts and sleepless nights with no engineers or compliance folks but we did it! This is my final act as CEO of @paxful Go login now and claim your funds! Self custody for the win ? post here if u got it! pic.twitter.com/o6nNDZcnqX

— Ray Youssef (@raypaxful) April 16, 2023

“If your account is still blocked, I am very sorry, but I do not have the right to unfreeze these funds, and they are in the hands of U.S. regulators. I have no access to clients’ funds,” wrote Youssef.

According to him, the remaining portion ‘is in the hands of a custodian’. This concerns 3% of the total customer assets.

Full transparency. This is how much remains of frozen funds. We today freed another 1m across 88% of accounts. 3% of total customer funds are still frozen. I am a human of integrity. I wouldn’t ruin my name to steal 4m or 4trillion. These funds are in a hands of a custodian now. pic.twitter.com/vFEetlOoW0

— Ray Youssef (@raypaxful) April 16, 2023

On April 4, it became known that the trading platform had been closed. At that time, the platform’s interface was operational, but trading and access to wallets were suspended.

Later, journalists suggested that the reason for Paxful’s shutdown was a dead-end legal dispute between its co-founders — Artur Shabak and Ray Youssef.

In 2021, the platform launched a B2B service, which allows merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in many ways.