Crypto trading exchange BitMart has revealed the integration of peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin marketplace Paxful onto its trading platform as the two companies look to increase liquidity and scalability, they stated on Thursday. The integration will allow participants to make payments via Paxful on the BitMat system. Customers of BitMart will have more payment options to choose from, while Paxful’s customers will gain direct access to the digital asset trading exchange and over 180 additional trading pairs. The two companies remarked the goal of this collaboration is to provide customers with a broader range of functionalities and opportunities. “BitMart has always been a mission to offer convenient and secure financial offerings in the crypto market. An integration with a revolutionary enterprise such as Paxful allows us to bring digital asset trading to those who would otherwise not have had the access,” explained Sheldon Xia, founder and CEO of BitMart. Released in 2017, BitMart is a crypto-to-crypto trading system headquartered in the Cayman Islands with branch offices in China, South Korea and the US. The organization claims more than 600,000 customers worldwide and over US$70 million in daily trading volume. “With this partnership, investors will now have direct access to multiple payment approaches including bank transfers, gift cards, debit/credit cards, and cash deposits, lowering the barriers to entry for latest adopters of digital currency investment,” Xia brought in. Paxful is a P2P marketplace that allows participants to buy bitcoin directly from other people. It’s a listing service like Craigslist where sellers list their ads to sell bitcoins and select the payment methods they wish to accept, whether that’s PayPal, debit cards, bank transfers or even gift cards. Buyers can search for deals based on their preferred payment method. Once payment is made, the bitcoins are released directly from escrow to the buyer’s Paxful wallet. Paxful charges no fee from buyers. Sellers pay a 1% fee. Paxful homepage Paxful focuses mainly on emerging markets and unbanked populations. It claims one million monthly active customers globally. “We’re excited to integrate with BitMart in efforts to bring more trading options to emerging markets,” stated Ray Youssef, CEO and co-founder of Paxful. “It has always been our mission to provide financial freedom worldwide and we see this as the next big step in the financial revolution.” In the past year, Paxful has been ramping up its expansion efforts in Africa, launching a blockchain incubation hub in 2018 to provide a co-working space and offerings including mentorship, corporate and individual blockchain training, and networking for initial coin offering (ICO) advisors. Youssef told CoinDesk in December 2018 that African bitcoin traders accounted for 41% of all of the service’s latest users in 2018. That same year, the system’s user base almost tripled in Ghana with 41,243 accounts and more than doubled in Nigeria to 321,476 accounts. In 2017, Paxful deployed the #BuiltwithBitcoin charitable program, encouraging the cryptocurrency community to contribute funds for humanitarian projects. It inaugurated the initiative with a donation of US$50,000 for the construction of a Rwanda nursery school. Earlier this month, Paxful completed the second out of the hundred schools it aims to build throughout Africa.