Bitcoin Forum

I haven't contributed anything to the project yet as I'm still learning how to use python and HTML5, but please, for those of you who do have the know-how, or the coin, please support OB's development by either helping develop the code at:

https://github.com/OpenBazaar/OpenBazaar (https://github.com/OpenBazaar/OpenBazaar)

or donate using the donate widget on their site:

http://openbazaar.org/ (http://openbazaar.org/)

(I wanted to paste a BTC address generated from that link, but something tells me it'd look wrong...)

Is OpenBazaar a tor site or is it run as a distributed torrent based network?

Decentralized marketplace for instantly trading with anyone using Bitcoin

No doubt... the idea is wonderful, but I doubt the practical implementability of it, though I'll be closely following this project. In a trustless open marketplace, chance of scam will be high. The challenge is to minimize it.

Yeah im' curious to see how this is implemented as well. Seems like a great idea, but I'd like to see a functioning prototype.

Then you definitely want to check out openbazaar because that's exactly what it is  :)

Not sure about the current state, but it's been a functioning prototype since day one (I know because I am one of the original authors)... maybe you mean a "production grade software" that will take more time but it can't be that far.

I pretty much share this concern. Without some kind of escrowing functionality it might get largely overlooked by potential customers. When money or valuable commodities are involved people tend to value security over anonymity.

The escrowing part is easier to do in a centralized approach. In a decentralized automated approach the hard part becomes proving the actual exchange of the goods. If you take Bitcoin as an inspiration things could be handled in a three step approach. If a deal is made the buying party issues a payment, the network verifies this issue of payment and by that notifies the seller that he will get the money as soon as he delivers proof of handing the goods to the buyer, if the network verifies this proof it confirms the whole transaction which results in the money being accounted to the seller.

The tricky part in this approach is how to create a reliable proof of handing the goods over that can be verified in an automated fashion.

Great thing about this is that it uses the same escrow-address generating feature DarkMarket has. Openbazaar is actually a fork of the DarkMarket proof-of-concept developed for the Toronto Bitcoin hackathon.

Wired has a very good post on how the prototype works:

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/darkmarket/ (http://www.wired.com/2014/04/darkmarket/)

also you may want to look into the NXT free market. it is a very similar concept except that it will use torrents instead of centralized servers to save and access all of the information that cant be practically stored on a blockchain. also it will use nxt instead of bitcoin.

great project!

I think we need a big market like this,maybe it is yours...
good luck!

Sounds interesting. I want to look into this. Do you have any links?

Sure. Its still a work in progress but we have a few different threads about it. Ill try to dig some of them up.

https://nxtforum.org/multigateway-jl777/nxtorrent/
https://nxtforum.org/trading-exchanges/350-000-nxt-bounty-physical-goods-store/

i know there is another thread related to this project somewhere but i cant seem to track it down.

They dont have TOR configured into the client app yet, but is working on it.

Ebay has the same difficulty with confirming delivery. All they do is essentially check tracking numbers. A trust rating system for sellers like ebay's will be an essential component. Unfortunately, whenever consumer protections are implemented, anonymity is diminished.

That is why Bitcoin is doing good being half-anonymous (where Tx is known, but address owner is unknown) and OpenBazaar type implementations will always find its place in SR type dark market. Normal consumer want security/insurance over his purchase. He'll spend some extra to mediator to ensure this and that is what the normal consumer sentiment is for a larger public market. So, with all due respect to the dev's sweat, I'm sorry to say, OpenBaazar is NOT going to be the next big thing in white market...

That's true, one could risk exposing their identity online when they file for arbitration cases and all that good stuff. They are also working on a two-layer web-of-trust system to ensure promote good seller practices. There's the trust given by other people as is, and feedback from previous transactions.

It doesnt have to be the next big thing. It just has to fill a niche that already exists for selling items and accepting payments using BTC, or any other cryptocurrency, for that matter.

They also got a very good slideshow demontrating the basics of what OB can do:

http://www.slideshare.net/openbazaar/open-bazaar (http://www.slideshare.net/openbazaar/open-bazaar)

To revive an old thread, since we're getting closer to a beta for OpenBazaar, I want to jump in and say that the questions about trust and anonymity are very real and challenging, so thank you for posing them.

In our preliminary documentation on the matter, A pseudonymous trust system for a decentralized anonymous marketplace (https://gist.github.com/dionyziz/e3b296861175e0ebea4b), we attempt to address some of these issues to preserve both anonymity and establish trust towards pseudonymous identities. Feedback is always welcome.

Yay. Just released beta version of OpenBazaar running on Ubuntu in vmplayer on windows desktop.  ;D

http://s10.postimg.org/ckpqlp12x/image.jpg

Looking interesting! Will keep an eye out and have a look when I have some time.

Interesting ideas you describe here, I would love to see them in action.

You ought to use a hybrid of WOT and a nash equilibrium strategy of mutually assured destruction through mutually risked funds. http://nashx.com/HowItWorks

The WOT give you protection from situations where there is a large discrepancy in the value applied to money its self by each party, and so the party that values the money less highly can extort the other party by legitimately threatening to destroy both parties risked funds. Its not a particularly threatening attack vector that would only work in very niche cases, but the addition of WOT would bring the likelihood of its occurrence down to almost zero.

The combination of these should be sufficient to create a very reliable totally distributed system of accountability even in within the framework of a totally anonymous system.