General

Paxful is a leading peer-to-peer marketplace where users can buy, sell, and store various cryptocurrencies. Ready to start building your financial future? Let’s get you started with a Paxful account.

1. Start at the Paxful Account Registration Page

If you’re starting from the Paxful home page, click Register.

From there, you'll need to create your account with either your phone number or email address.

Once your account is created, you'll receive a free cryptocurrency wallet. This digital wallet is where you will store all of your hard-earned cryptocurrency. To learn more about the functions of this wallet and any restrictions, visit our Help Center’s section on Paxful Wallets. 

2. Verify your Account

Once you've created your account, you'll need to verify your phone number or email address (depending on what you used to create your account with) using a code sent to your phone or email.

There are several levels of verification that you can complete. These verification levels allow for different trading opportunities within the marketplace, and the verification process helps the security of the platform.

That’s it! Time to get trading🤘 

Paxful is a leading peer-to-peer finance platform for trading cryptocurrency.

In 2014, Ray Youssef and Artur Schaback founded EasyBitz which was then renamed to Paxful, which gets its name from the Latin word for "peace". They had one goal in mind when they created it: to make Bitcoin easier for everyone from businesses to merchants.

A lot of big problems in the world revolve around money, specifically earning it and transporting it. Sending money around the world is not fast or cheap in any way, but Paxful changed that.

Paxful is the leading peer-to-peer cryptocurrency marketplace where buyers and sellers are connected for business. Having over 300 payment methods available on Paxful makes it incredibly easy to find suitable offers. We give the users complete control over their money. Along with our escrow system and our dedicated 24/7 customer support, Paxful is also extremely secure if you know how to minimize the risk and know how to secure your account. Upon sign up, Paxful users are given a FREE Bitcoin wallet.

The peer-to-peer system of Paxful removes borders and limits. You can think of your Paxful account as your very own financial passport. With it, you can send money and buy things from halfway around the world. Build a business with our Bitcoin affiliate program.

Our community has over 6 million users and it continues to grow. These users can make trading on Paxful extremely easy and hassle-free.

Create your very own Paxful account today!

There are over 300 ways to buy and sell cryptocurrency on Paxful.

Here are some of our more popular payment options:

1. Buy cryptocurrency with Bank Transfer, Cash
2. Buy cryptocurrency with Online Wallets like PayPal, Skrill, Neteller
3. Buy cryptocurrency with iTunes gift cards
4. Buy cryptocurrency with Amazon gift cards
5. Buy cryptocurrency doing local trades for Cash In-Person
6. Buy cryptocurrency with altcoins like Ethereum, Litecoin, and so on.

By clicking here, you can search for the ways you want to pay. All you have to do is input the amount of cryptocurrency you want to buy, the currency and the payment method you’ll be using. If you can’t find the payment method you’re looking for, you can always suggest one! It’s as simple as looking for a link that says “Your payment method doesn’t exist? Click here to suggest a new one”. 

The ways in which you can buy cryptocurrency are called “payment methods”.

Each way you can buy cryptocurrency is called a “payment method”. You can find a list of all available payment methods here. This list is always growing as Paxful traders in the market are creating new payment methods all the time. Each payment method has its own specifics and risk levels that you need to familiarize with before starting a trade. The peer-to-peer system that Paxful has, encourages this as it makes it easier to buy cryptocurrency. 

View the latest Terms of Service and user agreement here

Trading Cryptocurrency

Buying Cryptocurrency

• When buying cryptocurrency from another user on Paxful, you are buying cryptocurrency at a rate set by the customers themselves. These rates vary based on numerous factors such as your verification status, payment method, currency pair (such as USD, EUR, CNY), and order size.

Selling Cryptocurrency

• This escrow amount is deducted from your Paxful Wallet at the beginning of the trade. Upon successful completion of the trade, Paxful receives the escrow fee. If the trade is not completed, i.e cryptocurrency is released from escrow back to the cryptocurrency seller, Paxful takes no fee.

Sending and Receiving Bitcoin

Sending and Receiving Tether (USDT)

• When you send TRC-20 based USDT from your Paxful wallet, you won't pay a Tron network fee, but you will pay the Paxful wallet fee.
• Please note that while you can send USDT from your Paxful Wallet on the Tron network, your wallet cannot receive USDT from the Tron network.

Sending and Receiving Ethereum (ETH)

Lightning

Converting Cryptocurrency 

Converting Tether (USDT)

Paxful Stablecoin

The quoted price you receive from the Stablecoin Counterparty is inclusive of all fees and charges. This quoted price may include additional fees charged by the Stablecoin Counterparty and/or third party fees necessary to facilitate this transaction. Please note that this is a separate fee from a third party and Paxful is not responsible for nor calculates such third party fee.

We’ve taken a lot of security measures to make sure our users are safe in the marketplace. 

We have a strict verification process that helps ensure we know our customers, an army of dispute and fraud prevention analysts to help make sure trades run smoothly and to keep bad actors away from the marketplace. We also have an escrow feature in place where the crypto being traded is safely held until the trade is complete. This safeguards your money and helps make sure the crypto goes to the right party in case of disputes.

We use BitGo as our wallet service provider, which is one of the most secure and high-tech services on the market. Additionally, we provide you with all means to protect your funds within your Paxful account, like setting up two-factor authentication when you log into your account and send crypto out of your Paxful wallet.

To top it all off, we have some of the best cybersecurity professionals on our team that work around the clock to make sure our users and platform are safe from harm and hackers. 

If you’re looking for more information on your safety in the marketplace, check out these articles:

• How to stay safe on Paxful
• Reporting a problem
• Is my Paxful wallet secure?

Is Paxful trustworthy?

Paxful has an AML policy, we comply with Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") sanctions, we’re a regulated financial entity, and we’re trusted by over 5 million users. See what our users have to say about us through our reviews!

Chances are most of your Bitcoin transactions have been quickly confirmed. It takes two confirmations from the network before your balance is fully available in your Paxful wallet. This is the industry standard for a truly secure wallet. This can take anywhere from five minutes to an hour, depending on the Bitcoin network. However, some Bitcoin transactions can take longer to be confirmed by miners. If you believe your transaction is taking longer than usual to be confirmed it could be due to mempool congestion and fees. 

What is Mempool and Mempool Congestion?

Mempool is short for “memory” and “pool”. It is a way for Bitcoin to store unconfirmed transactions before being confirmed in the blockchain. It can be likened to waiting rooms at a doctor's office. 

Mempool congestion is when there are many unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions waiting to be confirmed to the blockchain by miners, and this is similar to when waiting rooms are full of people to see different doctors. Mempool congestion can be caused by two things:

• Transaction volume is high

This means the number of transactions waiting to be confirmed on the blockchain is high, and the volume of confirmations needed can’t be processed fast enough. This can be likened to when doctors are overwhelmed by the number of patients that are in the waiting room.

• Trade hash decreased abruptly

When the trade hash decreases abruptly, it means that there are not enough miners to confirm each transaction. This is similar to when there are not enough doctors to see waiting patients. Because of this the patients or in this case, the Bitcoin confirmations must wait longer.

How Do My Transaction Fees Relate to My Waiting Time?

It’s a misconception that there is one universal mempool. This is not the case as each transaction is unique and miners have different methods of confirming each transaction to the blockchain. With various fees tied to each unique transaction, miners are likely to process transactions with higher fees faster as they collect some of the fees. If you sent or bought a lower amount of Bitcoin and paid a lower fee, you may have to wait longer.

What Should I Do If My Bitcoin Transaction is Unconfirmed?

It’s rare that a transaction never settles on the blockchain, as most transactions will settle within 72 hours. In most cases, Paxful advises you to wait 72 hours before resending the transaction. If the transaction never makes it to the blockchain after 72 hours, your Bitcoin can be found in the wallet it was originally sent from. 

For more information on checking your transaction status, visit our help center article: How to Check Bitcoin Transaction Status