The cryptocurrency industry has grown immensely, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. This growth gave birth to the availability of more native crypto exchanges like Bitmama, Roqqu, Paxful, Quidax, Yellow Card, and so many more for Africans.
Cryptocurrency trading apps are convenient for buying, selling and storing digital assets. Good crypto trading apps possess appealing, easy-to-navigate designs/interfaces and allow users to deposit crypto/fiat in various methods with little or no fee and withdraw similarly. Also, they allow traders to track prices in real-time, set real-time alerts, and do advanced charting to aid trading decisions for increased profitability.
However, with many options now available, users experience varying satisfaction levels as these crypto exchanges have their own peculiarities: pros and cons.
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Considering these, we have reviewed and compared two leading crypto exchanges, Paxful and Roqqu.
Paxful
Paxful is a peer-to-peer crypto marketplace founded by Ray Youssef. Its layout and design look plain, easy to use, and fast with no technical complexity whatsoever. A crypto space newbie could jump in and start searching for crypto offers fairly quickly.
Paxful accepts over 450 payment methods for p2p crypto trading, and some of the most popular ones include Bank transfers, MTN Mobile Money, Gift cards, Chipper Cash and others. Making it one of the most accessible and user-friendly bitcoin marketplaces for Africans.
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Trading takes place directly between seller and buyer, without any third-party participation. However, there is a system that ensures no one commits fraud in the process. On every trade, Paxful keeps the cryptocurrency in an escrow account. After the seller confirms that they’ve received the payment, Paxful releases the crypto funds to the buyer.
Although it is mostly known as a platform for selling/buying Bitcoin, Paxful also supports trading Tether USDT and Ethereum. Users from any supported country like Nigeria can trade these assets with users from their countries or other countries.
Pros and cons of Paxful
One of the best features of using Paxful is that the exchange doesn’t charge a fee for buying crypto. Sellers pay a fee that varies based on the payment method. It costs between 0.5% and 1% with most payment methods or 3% to 5% with gift card payments. Also, there are over 450 payment methods which mean there’s virtually no way you can’t buy crypto on Paxful.
Conversely, the platform only offers three cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH and USDT). This means there’s a limitation to the number of cryptocurrencies you can buy and sell. Also, the p2p platform is largely susceptible to scammers. When using Paxful, you must be aware of common scams and check people’s reputations before trading with them.
Roqqu
Roqqu was created by a Nigerian named Uchenna Nnodim in 2019. It is an online crypto exchange and payment platform that lets users buy, sell, convert, transfer, receive, and store cryptocurrency without worrying about storing private keys and phrases.
The platform was designed with a simple user interface, making it easy for every user to navigate and trade, irrespective of their technological literacy. Users can trade a large amount of crypto or less depending on their level of verification on the platform.
With the CBN crypto ban on the financial institution, Roqqu has integrated means for Nigerians to withdraw their funds into local banks with two methods. Both methods require users to have an external wallet that they can send the funds to with the aid of p2p on the platform.
With this, Roqqu has provided a platform that connects buyers and sellers to get their cryptocurrencies swiftly. More than six cryptocurrencies can be traded on the Roqqu platform. But currently, only two (BTC and ETH) are reportedly functional.
Pros and cons of Roqqu
Currently, the Roqqu platform seems to have more cons than pros, as many users and observers continue to ask questions about its functionality. Recent reviews are mostly on the negative side.
For instance, at the time of working on this review, this writer could not access his Roqqu account after multiple attempts. And this doesn’t apply to this writer alone; a background check on Roqqu’s Twitter shows the comments of other users complaining about the same problem.
Many of users are thus people to desist from using the platform due to delayed crypto and fiat withdrawals.
Comparison of Paxful and Roqqu
For crypto traders interested in a fully functional exchange with a wide variety of payment methods, Paxful is the go-to at the moment. The only downside to Paxful apart from the p2p scammers’ risk is that it is unsuitable for use as a savings platform. It is more of a trading platform than a wallet for long/short term investors.
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Roqqu, as a native Nigerian exchange, would have been a suitable alternative, but its functionality cannot be vouched for at the moment. Although we can’t outrightly call the exchange a scam, we don’t think the platform is intentional about its lack of integrity.
Considering all these, it is justifiable to say that Paxful has an edge over Roqqu.
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