A fully decentralized marketplace

[boldfi]

Greetings,

   Lately, I've been contemplating the feasibility of a fully decentralized marketplace. This marketplace would primarily operate through
   smart contracts, ensuring decentralization and seizure resistance.

   Indeed, all that would be needed to sell and buy on the contract would be the contract' address.
   From that anyone could open its custom frontend access, like an access point.
   So even an 'access point' being taken down, the core of the marketplace would still live somewhere in the wild on the blockchain.

   In the case of physical goods transactions, the contract would encrypt the buyer's home address with the seller's key,
   ensuring that only the buyer and seller could access it.

   To address concerns about scams, sellers could be rated through an upvoting system, and feedback mechanisms could be implemented.

   However, there is one challenge to consider: fees. Any action that involves writing data, such as posting a product for sale or upvoting a seller,
   would incur gas fees. Nevertheless, on blockchains with very low fees, such a decentralized marketplace could still offer significant benefits, in my opinion.

   So i'd like to get your thought and feedbacks of such a market, solely based on smart contracts.  

[DaveF]

Something like this: https://bitbay.market/decentralized-marketplace/
There have been a few others over the years, none as far as I can tell have gained any real traction.

-Dave

[Vod]

   Indeed, all that would be needed to sell and buy on the contract would be the contract' address.
   From that anyone could open its custom frontend access, like an access point.

This is a good idea that the current services don't offer.   If I could post a simple URL, like https://boldfi.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and the user could visit a page that offers all information, before requiring sign up, it might be the kick that pushes smart contracts into the mainstream.

[boldfi]

Thanks for your feedbacks.

DaveF, i was more thinking of pure smart contracts rather than a decentralized p2p client that you have to install + maintain peers.

Maybe i'll try to code a little POC when i get free time.

[Yamane_Keto]

If the goods and services you sell in this market are legal, then what is the reason for making it decentralized? I can understand decentralization in mixers and services that may need to enhance privacy, but purchasing goods and products may be linked to knowing the buyer’s address, which makes it difficult to provide a service of a privacy nature. The market can be implemented for digital products not physical goods.

[Vod]

If the goods and services you sell in this market are legal, then what is the reason for making it decentralized? I can understand decentralization in mixers and services that may need to enhance privacy, but purchasing goods and products may be linked to knowing the buyer’s address, which makes it difficult to provide a service of a privacy nature. The market can be implemented for digital products not physical goods.

You can meet in a public place to exchange goods - no one needs to know your address.

[boldfi]

If the goods and services you sell in this market are legal, then what is the reason for making it decentralized? I can understand decentralization in mixers and services that may need to enhance privacy, but purchasing goods and products may be linked to knowing the buyer’s address, which makes it difficult to provide a service of a privacy nature. The market can be implemented for digital products not physical goods.

I see a lot of benefits for such a market.

The market would be accessible 24/7 from anywhere in the world, eliminating the risk of server downtime or IP restrictions that could occur with a centralized market.

Secondly, the market would be crypto compliant, allowing for the democratization of purchasing goods and services with a non-fiat currency.

 I also believe that a community would appreciate the ability to buy products without sharing personal information with big tech companies and large corporations. Whether we like it or not, privacy is disappearing today.

Finally, this would bring to life a market entirely controlled by its users and not by a central authority. Many legitimate services are emerging in a decentralized way, I see utility in it.

Correct me if you disagree. I’m trying to think constructively about such a project.

[Yamane_Keto]

The market would be accessible 24/7 from anywhere in the world, eliminating the risk of server downtime or IP restrictions that could occur with a centralized market.

Secondly, the market would be crypto compliant, allowing for the democratization of purchasing goods and services with a non-fiat currency.

points you mentioned are good, but privacy does not necessarily mean decentralization, and managing a decentralized market will be more difficult than a central market. We value privacy, but it is difficult to find a lot of interest and success in a decentralized market, as the user will need to download the software and manage it, and the process will be slower than central services, and risk Restrictions are lower, especially if all goods are legal.

[boldfi]

points you mentioned are good, but privacy does not necessarily mean decentralization, and managing a decentralized market will be more difficult than a central market. We value privacy, but it is difficult to find a lot of interest and success in a decentralized market, as the user will need to download the software and manage it, and the process will be slower than central services, and risk Restrictions are lower, especially if all goods are legal.

I understand your arguments.
Though, in the case of a fully smart-contracts powered marketplace, users would not need to install any client. The market would theoretically be accessible from your computer terminal if you'd like to. All that would be required to interact would be to know the 42 contract's address characters, and an internet connection.

In practice, user-friendly frontends could emerged and be hosted on traditional URLs to provide a more intuitive and familiar interface for users.

Actually, an infinite number of UIs may be developed, all connected to the same underlying marketplace. This would make the market highly modular, and accessible to a very broad audience.


About privacy, anyone could order a thousand times, each time with a new identity. On such a market, the "identity" would only be defined by your key pair.
Also, none of your personal information, such as your phone number or last name, would ever end up on leakbase.io or any other shady site.

From my perspective, this represents the pinnacle of peer-to-peer technology, and I find the idea very appealing.

[Vod]

All that would be required to interact would be to know the 42 contract's address characters...

That is a technical issue that has prevented thousands of people from using bitcoin.  A long stream of characters can scare anybody.  
Allow users to create "nicknames" for their contracts.   So I can say use contract Vod24 instead of xxx....  Remove case sensitivity if you can.  (VOD and Vod identical)
You obviously can reuse old names after a period of time.

[yhiaali3]

About privacy, anyone could order a thousand times, each time with a new identity. On such a market, the "identity" would only be defined by your key pair.
Also, none of your personal information, such as your phone number or last name, would ever end up on leakbase.io or any other shady site.

The idea seems attractive, but can it be implemented on the ground?

I mean, for example, suppose I ordered a product from the decentralized market and I am in a distant country. How will the product be delivered to me without knowing some details such as the address? How will transportation and delivery be done? Shipping the product requires knowing the recipient's details and identification.

[boldfi]

The idea seems attractive, but can it be implemented on the ground?

I mean, for example, suppose I ordered a product from the decentralized market and I am in a distant country. How will the product be delivered to me without knowing some details such as the address? How will transportation and delivery be done? Shipping the product requires knowing the recipient's details and identification.

For digital goods, no need to give any informations, the trade could go on in a fully anonymous way.

For physical products, your shipping address would be ciphered using the seller’s key, ensuring only him would be able to read it. This makes a two parties trade, with only one information shared.

If one doesn’t want to share its delivery address with an unknown —maybe reputed— seller, many ways exist to proceed without giving this informations. The good old escrow service, the package forwarding service, dead drops, public meetings, mailbox master keys, pickup points and so on …

That’s for the purists, the goal isn’t to give 100% privacy — even if anyone could — but to give life to an autonomous, decentralized and users-driven market.

[SFR10]

To address concerns about scams, sellers could be rated through an upvoting system, and feedback mechanisms could be implemented.

However, there is one challenge to consider: fees. Any action that involves writing data, such as posting a product for sale or upvoting a seller,
would incur gas fees.

I don't think a fee-based upvote system can protect users from scammers who have enough resources at their disposal to artificially inflate their ratings ^{[unfortunately, I can't suggest a better way to deal with such cases]}... Would you mind sharing the terms of the smart contracts in an in-depth manner and will everything be fully open-sourced?

[boldfi]

I don't think a fee-based upvote system can protect users from scammers who have enough resources at their disposal to artificially inflate their ratings ^{[unfortunately, I can't suggest a better way to deal with such cases]}... Would you mind sharing the terms of the smart contracts in an in-depth manner and will everything be fully open-sourced?

Only buyers would be able to leave a feedback on a product / seller, and a seller wouldn't be able to buy its own product. This means a scammer would have to create multiple accounts ( key pairs ), fund each address, place fake orders ( incurring fees ), wait through escrow periods (potentially mandatory for new sellers), and then give each fake orders a positive feedbacks ( fees again ).

I think that's a lot of effort, time and fees, just to scam one or two people and see negative feedbacks appear right after. Someone with enough funds wouldn't even bother doing so. Someone with low funds couldn't.

I think that the terms of the contract still need to be thought through and clearly articulated. The marketplace would obviously be open source.

[Synchronice]

Lately, I've been contemplating the feasibility of a fully decentralized marketplace. This marketplace would primarily operate through
smart contracts, ensuring decentralization and seizure resistance.

Fully decentralized marketplace? Seizure resistance? How? How can it be a seizure resistance if its so decentralized that there is no moderation and people will be able to submit illegal things? By giving absolute freedom, it will turn into a darknet and not a normal marketplace.

I also believe that a community would appreciate the ability to buy products without sharing personal information with big tech companies and large corporations. Whether we like it or not, privacy is disappearing today.

At some point we all have shared our personal info with big companies and corporations, it's not a big deal if eBay or Amazon knows my address, I cant hide from DHL and amazon delivery guy

I'll be honest and say that decentralized marketplace is a dead project, it will never become a competitor of any online marketplace, it's too complex and clumsy for average user.

[boldfi]

Fully decentralized marketplace? Seizure resistance? How? How can it be a seizure resistance if its so decentralized that there is no moderation and people will be able to submit illegal things? By giving absolute freedom, it will turn into a darknet and not a normal marketplace.

In its purest form, with absolute freedom, it would indeed allow anyone to sell anything without restrictions. If the wrong community gets to know it, it would indeed turn into an unstoppable darkmarket. That's why a governance system is mandatory. One could get a product / seller banned by voting. Enough votes lead to listing erasing. After a first report, the product wouldn't be accessible to anyone until vote ends.
Illegal products wouldn't remain accessible more than a couple hours.

I also pictured some members roles, where most trustable users ( dispute ratio, number of orders ... ) would have more weight in votes, and would moderate the market. They could get a revenue from a dedicated pool even.

At some point we all have shared our personal info with big companies and corporations, it's not a big deal if eBay or Amazon knows my address, I cant hide from DHL and amazon delivery guy

I'll be honest and say that decentralized marketplace is a dead project, it will never become a competitor of any online marketplace, it's too complex and clumsy for average user.

This market is not for average users. Its a crypto-enthusiasts dedicated market for those who care about privacy. For some, sharing infos with big companies is a big deal. I do care.

[Synchronice]

One could get a product / seller banned by voting. Enough votes lead to listing erasing. After a first report, the product wouldn't be accessible to anyone until vote ends.
Illegal products wouldn't remain accessible more than a couple hours.

I also pictured some members roles, where most trustable users ( dispute ratio, number of orders ... ) would have more weight in votes, and would moderate the market. They could get a revenue from a dedicated pool even.

Decentralization is not a human nature. By creating a decentralized marketplace, you are trying to bring anarchy in social animals, it doesn't work that way because humans, i.e. social animals, always try to team up, group together and centralize the power. Over time, that will happen to decentralized marketplace.

This market is not for average users. Its a crypto-enthusiasts dedicated market for those who care about privacy. For some, sharing infos with big companies is a big deal. I do care.

If it's not for average users and only for crypto-enthusiasts, then it will still be very hard to keep it alive. Number of crypto enthusiasts is low, the number of those who are paranoid about their privacy, is super low. If number of your customers will be super low, then there won't be enough goods placed on your decentralized marketplace, so it will eventually die and people will be forced to use eBay & Amazon.

Also, I don't get it, why are some people so paranoid about their privacy? I sometimes think that some people work online and never go out to protect their privacy or if they go out, they were hoodie and dark sunglasses. Doesn't make sense.

[boldfi]

Decentralization is not a human nature. By creating a decentralized marketplace, you are trying to bring anarchy in social animals, it doesn't work that way because humans, i.e. social animals, always try to team up, group together and centralize the power. Over time, that will happen to decentralized marketplace.

If it's not for average users and only for crypto-enthusiasts, then it will still be very hard to keep it alive. Number of crypto enthusiasts is low, the number of those who are paranoid about their privacy, is super low. If number of your customers will be super low, then there won't be enough goods placed on your decentralized marketplace, so it will eventually die and people will be forced to use eBay & Amazon.

Also, I don't get it, why are some people so paranoid about their privacy? I sometimes think that some people work online and never go out to protect their privacy or if they go out, they were hoodie and dark sunglasses. Doesn't make sense.

I understand your point of view. But i still think such a market would be interesting for a lot of people.
Lot of online industries are now heading toward decentralization architecture, and i don't think e-commerce will be an exception.

Decentralization offers so much benefits ( even if you don't seem interested by it ) such as privacy, server downtime and censorship resistance, increased accessibility... that i don't think the old, simple client/server infrastructure will still be relevant in 10 years.

I may be wrong tho, your feedback is appreciated.

[Synchronice]

I understand your point of view. But i still think such a market would be interesting for a lot of people.
Lot of online industries are now heading toward decentralization architecture, and i don't think e-commerce will be an exception.

Decentralization offers so much benefits ( even if you don't seem interested by it ) such as privacy, server downtime and censorship resistance, increased accessibility... that i don't think the old, simple client/server infrastructure will still be relevant in 10 years.

I may be wrong tho, your feedback is appreciated.

If you do think that decentralized marketplace will be interesting, become popular and generate revenue, then do it, no one stops you from that, I am just stating my opinion about it.
I think that lots of infrastructures are using buzzword decentralization for marketing purposes, like they use the word AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Blockchain technologies.

Okay, let's say that decentralization offers privacy, the seller still knows your name, the post company and the delivery guy still knows that you are receiving an item and if decentralized marketplace is using Cloudflare, then CF also knows it too.
I think that eBay or Amazon doesn't experience server downtime, at least I have never had an issue and I was always able to shop, so, I wouldn't say that this is the benefit of decentralized marketplace, it's in a neutral side.
Censorship resistance in marketplace is not a bad thing because people are willing to sell illegal things if it gives them a good profit.
Again, it doesn't offer increased accessibility. I and everyone can easily access eBay or Amazon.

Thank you too for your opinion, arguing helps us to find a good problems and solutions.

[348Judah]

There is nothing wrong with this kind of idea, but what the people want is having a reliable one, that is why you see many couldn't afford not to make use of a centralized exchange in acquiring their crypto digital asset, though i expect the decentralized exchanges to perform or have a similar role in what you're trying to fish out as an idea here, for now, the crypto networks are satisfactory enough than going far to seek for more new inventions on this regards, but we needed more of how people could achieve their financial demands under a trusted and decentralized means, just as we have some escrow providers who are trusted to engage buying and selling.

[boldfi]

If you do think that decentralized marketplace will be interesting, become popular and generate revenue, then do it, no one stops you from that, I am just stating my opinion about it.
I think that lots of infrastructures are using buzzword decentralization for marketing purposes, like they use the word AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Blockchain technologies.

Okay, let's say that decentralization offers privacy, the seller still knows your name, the post company and the delivery guy still knows that you are receiving an item and if decentralized marketplace is using Cloudflare, then CF also knows it too.
I think that eBay or Amazon doesn't experience server downtime, at least I have never had an issue and I was always able to shop, so, I wouldn't say that this is the benefit of decentralized marketplace, it's in a neutral side.
Censorship resistance in marketplace is not a bad thing because people are willing to sell illegal things if it gives them a good profit.
Again, it doesn't offer increased accessibility. I and everyone can easily access eBay or Amazon.

Thank you too for your opinion, arguing helps us to find a good problems and solutions.

While eBay and Amazon may not experience downtime, they do censor. These are lobbies-influenced markets.
Several cases of product's removal have been reported.

Amazon promotes products which fit the "right-thinking trend". Go on and try to sell a product containing too much plastic, its visibility will drop to zero, getting overtaken by woke products.
Of course i do exaggerate, but you get the idea.

Big techs are lobby-driven and always follow trends to sell more, censorship is real on those platforms. Not to mention your data are being stored, analyzed and sold to feed some other big tech..
I do not care about my delivery guy knowing i ordered a package on the weekend. I do care about Amazon knowing what exact reference i ordered at what time, while doing what..

If you are ok with those practices, a decentralized marketplace may indeed not fit your needs.

[Kakmakr]

If the goods and services you sell in this market are legal, then what is the reason for making it decentralized? I can understand decentralization in mixers and services that may need to enhance privacy, but purchasing goods and products may be linked to knowing the buyer’s address, which makes it difficult to provide a service of a privacy nature. The market can be implemented for digital products not physical goods.

You can meet in a public place to exchange goods - no one needs to know your address.

Yes, but a market place like this must offer international transactions, so you cannot apply this to all scenarios.

There should be something that encrypt that kind of details and just provide a key to the buyer and seller, when they want to do business. (The key can change for every individual transaction)

This way, you do not have one large public database of all buyer and seller personal information that can be farmed with one click.

[Kavalski]

Well, at least in other places of the web such a decentralized marketplace is already a reality?

Check BlockAze for example. It encodes all listings and market acticity fully on the Bitcoin blockchain and is active right now.

Here is its source repository:

https://git.tchncs.de/BorealUS/blockaze

You can find tutorials on YouTube or its full manual and code in the above link. It currently forgoes escrow in favour of a trust/ranking system.

I think it fulfills almost all criteria here and is actively used / maintained. Due to its emerging popularity it's API has been
added on https://moofetch.mooo.com, next to other established tools like Fulcrum SPV.

[boldfi]

Well, at least in other places of the web such a decentralized marketplace is already a reality?

Check BlockAze for example. It encodes all listings and market acticity fully on the Bitcoin blockchain and is active right now.

Here is its source repository:

https://git.tchncs.de/BorealUS/blockaze

You can find tutorials on YouTube or its full manual and code in the above link. It currently forgoes escrow in favour of a trust/ranking system.

I think it fulfills almost all criteria here and is actively used / maintained. Due to its emerging popularity it's API has been
added on https://moofetch.mooo.com, next to other established tools like Fulcrum SPV.

Interesting thing. Not exactly what i mentionned tho. This requires running a client and connect to peers.

[Kavalski]

It is pretty interesting actually as it exactly mirrors Bitcoin in its possible usage.

• You can trade via a full node, which is the most secure as a local copy of the blockchain is used.
• You can trade via a trusted web based API source such as https://moofetch.mooo.com
• You can trade via a full node, which is the most secure as a local copy of the blockchain is used.

Interestingly,  there is even a client shipped that allows trade from the command line.
The best thing is, as a buyer you do not even need BlockAze - you can pay via normal transactions
from your Electrum Wallet which greatly increases adoption. As long as the transaction fulfills some criteria (easy!)
it is then properly parsed by BlockAze and then added to a sellers ranking etc.

You can even run your own market with this tool.

In the darker parts of the web this tool is quite the rage in some smaller communities, as servers cannot be taken down. Here are some images from the above Gitlab repository:

https://git.tchncs.de/BorealUS/blockaze/-/raw/main/documentation/src/media/source_tutorial_1.png?ref_type=heads

https://git.tchncs.de/BorealUS/blockaze/-/raw/main/documentation/src/media/wave_tutorial_1.png?ref_type=heads

https://git.tchncs.de/BorealUS/blockaze/-/raw/main/documentation/src/media/surfer_tutorial_4.png?ref_type=heads

Where I live, BlockAze is merely classified as a blockchain search engine, which is why its API could be added to moofetch among others such as Fulcrum.