LocalBitcoins Warns Users That Tor Browser Increases Risk of Bitcoin Theft

LocalBitcoins, the popular peer-to-peer exchange platform based in Finland, has cautioned all of its many customers against using popular anonymous browser, Tor. This was made known via a screenshot posted by Richard Bensberg (@richardbensberg), a compliance expert. The LocalBitcoins screenshot warned about the risk of users being victims of crypto theft through the Tor Browser. It read:

“Warning to all Tor Users: A Tor browser exposes you to the risk of having your bitcoins stolen.”

Bensberg captioned the screenshot with the words “Localbitcoins has really lost the plot” probably tackling the exchange for standing publicly against a tool that is popularly known for its privacy allowances. This prompted LocalBitcoins to reply to Bensberg’s tweet, explaining that the exchange does not advice the use of Tor to ensure security of funds.

“Using a Tor browser is not against LocalBitcoins’ Terms of Service, even though it has not been recommended for security reasons.”

The Tor Browser is floated by the Tor project which launched a recent Bitcoin based crowdfunding endeavour, a few months ago. The project was called “BitcoinForTor” and was very successful as it hit $10,000 just 25 hours after it begun on the 15^th of July. The service however did not stop further donations from coming in.

LocalBitcoins recently stopped letting its customers perform trading in local fiat currencies. It announced that:

“In order to adapt to the current regulatory environment, we had to reconsider our policy on local cash trades as well as on geographical areas where our service is available, among other platform features. As a consequence, advertisements in the cash category (i.e. local cash trades) were disabled in our platform on Saturday 1^st June.”

Since then, trading volumes on the platform have dropped.