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Peer-to-Peer (P2P) cryptocurrency trading refers to trades that occur directly between two parties without a central authority (like an exchange) being involved.
It’s possible to execute P2P trades using a Binance account. You’d start by browsing the listings of adverts. Suppose, for example, that you wanted to buy ETH using GBP. This is what your choices might look like:
Each offer lists the following details:
- information about the advertiser
- price
- amount available (with minimum and maximum amounts) and
- payment methods.
There are only four options for buying ETH with GBP, but for other combinations there are a huge variety.
It’d be really useful to be able to gather these data in R for analysis. This ability has now been built into the {binance} package.
library(binance)
packageVersion("binance")
[1] '0.0.4'
Searching P2P Adverts
You can search for P2P adverts using p2p_search(). You need to specify a cryptocurrency, a fiat currency and whether you want to buy or sell the cryptocurrency.
ethgbp_buy <- p2p_search(coin = "ETH", fiat = "GBP", side = "BUY") # A tibble: 3 × 10 advert_id side asset fiat price available min_amount max_amount advertiser payment <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <list> <list> 1 11291184040943738880 BUY ETH GBP 3841. 0.100 100 384. <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [1 × 2]> 2 11290554839186268160 BUY ETH GBP 3944. 0.0280 25 111. <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [2 × 2]> 3 11274997241972600832 BUY ETH GBP 4150. 2.28 210 5000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [3 × 2]>
Let’s compare those prices to the current market price for ETH/GBP.
market_price_ticker("ETHGBP")
# A tibble: 1 × 2
symbol price
<chr> <dbl>
1 ETHGBP 3408.
So, relative to the market these P2P adverts are rather expensive. But, given time, they might become appealing options.
Let’s retrieve the adverts to sell ETH for GBP.
ethgbp_sell <- p2p_search("ETH", "GBP", side = "SELL")
DEBUG [2021-11-10 04:11:38] Retrieve page 1.
DEBUG [2021-11-10 04:11:39] 10 records.
DEBUG [2021-11-10 04:11:39] Retrieve page 2.
DEBUG [2021-11-10 04:11:40] 10 records.
DEBUG [2021-11-10 04:11:40] Retrieve page 3.
DEBUG [2021-11-10 04:11:41] 7 records.
Now there are multiple pages of results.
# A tibble: 27 × 10 advert_id side asset fiat price available min_amount max_amount advertiser payment <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <list> <list> 1 11192451152210288640 SELL ETH GBP 3320. 238.8 200 3000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [4 × 2]> 2 11196715384016052224 SELL ETH GBP 3320. 215.4 150 3000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [3 × 2]> 3 11200760404927963136 SELL ETH GBP 3320. 243.4 300 3000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [4 × 2]> 4 11279154989629005824 SELL ETH GBP 3290. 0.9301 5 100 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [2 × 2]> 5 11282657218708013056 SELL ETH GBP 3263. 5000 100 4300 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [1 × 2]> 6 11278966078512259072 SELL ETH GBP 3249. 5 10 1000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [3 × 2]> 7 11275037404312793088 SELL ETH GBP 3244. 4953. 5000 50000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [5 × 2]> 8 11273419959738163200 SELL ETH GBP 3242. 64.17 5000 50000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [4 × 2]> 9 11290026526151233536 SELL ETH GBP 3214. 49.78 50 1000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [3 × 2]> 10 11270028949867687936 SELL ETH GBP 3185. 129.5 1000 50000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [4 × 2]> 11 11290367713051439104 SELL ETH GBP 3183. 4958. 500 10000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [2 × 2]> 12 11279379728860016640 SELL ETH GBP 3182. 1.85 170 5000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [5 × 2]> 13 11283824496913539072 SELL ETH GBP 3180. 2 50 499 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [2 × 2]> 14 11286420141616021504 SELL ETH GBP 3179. 0.7942 10 1000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [2 × 2]> 15 11253682571961200640 SELL ETH GBP 3160. 239.6 500 1600 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [4 × 2]> 16 11290256313290911744 SELL ETH GBP 3119. 4598. 1500 10000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [2 × 2]> 17 11264166215091884032 SELL ETH GBP 3111. 200 200 2000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [1 × 2]> 18 11289644893749825536 SELL ETH GBP 3100 97.95 110 50000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [3 × 2]> 19 11217282142004260864 SELL ETH GBP 3086. 433.7 5000 26000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [4 × 2]> 20 11276480970994933760 SELL ETH GBP 2938. 86.78 200 50000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [5 × 2]> 21 11275030775683301376 SELL ETH GBP 2937. 4946. 1000 10000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [5 × 2]> 22 11283482898014212096 SELL ETH GBP 2931. 95.28 500 10000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [5 × 2]> 23 11285962428794703872 SELL ETH GBP 2868. 998.4 100 30000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [4 × 2]> 24 11289831448491343872 SELL ETH GBP 2840 9.666 10 10000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [3 × 2]> 25 10212826124033101824 SELL ETH GBP 2767. 5 1 1000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [3 × 2]> 26 11269092753552330752 SELL ETH GBP 2765. 49.93 30 1000 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [5 × 2]> 27 11277272442930212864 SELL ETH GBP 2765. 99.53 50 2200 <tibble [1 × 5]> <tibble [2 × 2]>
These prices are a lot closer to the market. Evidently there’s more interest in selling ETH for GBP via P2P.
Advertiser Information
One of the primary concerns with P2P trading is the ability to trust the other party. We can look at some data on the advertisers.
ethgbp_sell %>% select(advert_id, advertiser) %>% unnest(col = advertiser) %>% head(15) # A tibble: 15 × 6 advert_id id name type orders completion <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <int> <dbl> 1 11192451152210288640 se37c6c00929f3d368344659b41d1ad3b "HaastrupBTC" user 18 0.8182 2 11196715384016052224 sd6c9edff893439c18447cb66e4fd3cb7 "3TBTC" user 350 0.9831 3 11200760404927963136 s965fab140ee8307581e48d34f3832ff3 "B3Crypto" user 97 0.8661 4 11279154989629005824 s61cdc5ad449635f0b74a7080d81ed3d9 "GetCashBack" user 314 0.8156 5 11282657218708013056 sa647e62ff3b738ad80a8d62639263485 "ibnjarir" merchant 179 0.8995 6 11278966078512259072 scec35009dc7e328fb069d11d2dae112a "umar innocent " user 107 0.8699 7 11275037404312793088 sa04c6fa43dc53f4db1540ce983d9adcb "TheLightOfTheWorld" merchant 280 0.9091 8 11273419959738163200 s9ba10d50cd82337e9e57902a97bcc4bc "CRYPTO EXPERT" merchant 43 0.8571 9 11290026526151233536 s5266fc79f0423798bf6bb44efc416155 "AL_Maqsood786" user 56 0.9492 10 11270028949867687936 sa6305df346253cf5a48ed79a5a352962 "cptope" merchant 287 0.9169 11 11290367713051439104 s0d0f3163a0c738b59c1c942bb4cf8922 "Shurik_inc" merchant 455 0.9305 12 11279379728860016640 s28b16ca595fd35be984ac5baef27671e "EurHufEth" user 66 1 13 11283824496913539072 s50c83e695aa43630ba1138d9cc76049a "winni" user 148 0.8457 14 11286420141616021504 s899de69a413b398db36e209a45d0887c "HHBOSS" user 208 0.8595 15 11253682571961200640 sf7cfccc60e82308aa656a0f3d438e54e "BDN" merchant 120 0.9023
You can see what type of account it is (either a merchant or a user), the username and ID, as well as some statistics on their P2P trading history: the number of orders and the completion rate. Using these data it would be a simple matter to filter the adverts according to the characteristics of the advertiser. Personally I’d be looking for advertisers wtih a decent number of orders and a high completion rate.
We can use the p2p_advertiser_detail() function to dig a bit deeper.
details <- p2p_advertiser_detail("s0d0f3163a0c738b59c1c942bb4cf8922")
That returns a lot of data (which is, unfortunately, a little untidy at present). Let’s look at some more of the user statistics.
# A tibble: 1 × 2
register_days first_order_days
<int> <int>
1 237 237
The user has been active on the platform for 237 days. What’s the total order count? (The orders count in the table above is only for the last 30 days).
# A tibble: 1 × 3
completed_order_num completed_buy_order_num completed_sell_order_num
<int> <int> <int>
1 1951 690 1261
How long does it typically take this user to complete an order?
# A tibble: 1 × 2
avg_release_time_of_latest30day avg_pay_time_of_latest30day
<dbl> <dbl>
1 2178. 2161.
Those numbers are in seconds, so it’s typically around half an hour.
Payment Information
Another consideration is the payment options: what channels are available for transferring fiat currency?
ethgbp_sell %>% unnest(payment) %>% count(name) %>% arrange(n) # A tibble: 16 × 2 name n <chr> <int> 1 AirTM 1 2 Faster Payment System (FPS) 1 3 International Wire (SWIFT) 1 4 Paysera 1 5 Perfect Money 1 6 Transfers with specific bank 1 7 Uphold 1 8 Faster Payments 2 9 Payeer 2 10 SEPA (EU) bank transfer 2 11 Advcash 3 12 Cash app 4 13 Revolut 11 14 Lloyds Bank 15 15 Transferwise 20 16 Bank Transfer 24
It looks like bank transfer and TransferWise are the most commonly accepted payment methods, but there are some adverts that use more niche methods.
Again, these data can be used to filter the adverts according to payment method.
Next Steps
I’ll be adding further P2P functionality to {binance}. If there are particular features that you’re interested in, please let me know.
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