Jack Dorsey’s crypto firm TBD has partnered with Paxful co-founder Ray Youssef to launch a decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto trading platform.
The new venture, called Civilization Kit (Civ Kit), will be built on Nostr, a decentralized network protocol for distributed and free social networking systems, according to the project. white paper Released last month.
Civ Kit’s launch comes shortly after Yusuf’s P2P bitcoin marketplace, Paxful, which was popular in countries like Nigeria and Kenya, shut down amid regulatory pressure and internal conflicts.
Civ Kit intends to build a network of decentralized, non-custodial bitcoin marketplaces that could reach thousands, Youssef said during a recent episode of The Scoop, a weekly interview podcast by crypto media The Block.
He claimed that the Civ Kit would lead to thousands of plug-and-play P2P marketplaces around the world, adding that the decentralized identity technology developed by Jack Dorsey’s company TBD would play a key role in this process.
before yusuf did called Civ Kit “The Next Evolution of Bitcoin.”
“We spent millions on compliance, but even that was not enough,” he said in an interview.
“And then to make things worse, in mid-January, my co-founder decided to sue the company and me. The lawsuit got really nasty and it scared the best of us off. My entire core level staff resigned. I didn’t have any operational staff.
Paxful shuts down amid internal conflicts
Paxful was founded in 2015 and facilitates P2P crypto trading, meaning users exchange bitcoin for cash, gift cards, mobile money, and other forms of currency through the platform.
market in early April announced that it is suspending operations following internal conflicts between Youssef and Paxful co-founder Artur Schabach.
More specifically, the latter accused Youssef of bailing him out of operations, withholding important details about the platform’s business transactions, and fraudulently transferring funds.
Paxful has encouraged users to move their funds to non-custodial wallets or other platforms, such as the newly created Nuance P2P bitcoin marketplace.
Noones offers functionality similar to Paxful, including a wallet, listing service, marketplace, and escrow, with Lightning Network functionality coming in a few weeks.
However, Civ Kit intends to go beyond Noones and Paxful, helping anyone build a decentralized bitcoin-based marketplace on top of its ecosystem, Youssef said.
“This is possibly the most exciting thing since bitcoin. It will allow anyone – community or nation state – to create their own decentralized marketplace. My dream is to have 1,000 options running all over the world.”