Paxful Delists ETH

Paxful, the popular crypto marketplace, has been in the news quite a bit in the last few weeks. First, there were comments made by its CEO advocating for crypto self-custody and urging users not to store their tokens on the platform.

Now, Paxful is back in the news and this time, it is for the bold decision to delist Ethereum tokens. That’s right, Paxful has delisted the second-biggest crypto by market cap on its platform. This was confirmed in a December 21, 2022 email that was sent out to customers and in it, the reason for the delisting was explained. 

Goodbye, ETH

The email confirmed that from December 22 (UTC 12:00), ETH will no longer be listed on Paxful. And why would such a top token be removed? According to the email, Paxful and its CEO are trying to pursue integrity and ensure more economic equality across the globe. 

“The biggest problem in the world is economic apartheid. It is the root of all of humanity’s pain. I want to see a world where Bitcoin frees billions of people held back by this evil system, especially those unnecessarily harmed living in the Global South,” the email said.

Following this, three main reasons were given for ETH’s delisting. The first was its switch from the proof-of-work to the proof-of-stake protocol. While this move was lauded for the ways that it would reduce the environmental impact of the blockchain, Paxful believes that the proof-of-work protocol makes a crypto ‘honest’ and that Bitcoin is currently the only honest money there is. As for Ethereum, the email said that it is now basically a digital form of fiat currency.

The second reason given is that Ethereum is not truly a decentralised asset. Linking to an article from Bitcoin Magazine, Paxful says that it is controlled by a small group of people and that one day, we may need permission to use it. The final reason that was cited was the fact that while Ethereum has some use cases, a majority of its dominance comes from tokenization. Moreover, the tokens that have spawned from Ethereum have been used in scams in the past, leading to the loss of millions of dollars. 

With all these in mind, Paxful has decided to delist the asset. And this action has been stated to not just be for the benefit of the platform but of the industry as a whole. 

“our industry is under attack right now—which means our responsibility to protect our users is greater than ever before. We are not perfect, but we’ll always do the right thing, even if it’s not popular, and even if it costs us money. The pay off for all humanity will be so great that the billions scammers have stolen via tokens will seem like pennies by comparison,” the email says. 

What This Means

This is a very bold move on the part of Paxful as it essentially calls out a top token as well as delists it. How the industry will respond to this move, however, is yet to be seen.