[ANN] OpenBazaar - A Decentralized Market Platform

[drwasho]

https://blog.openbazaar.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/logo.png

Zero Fees. Zero Censorship.

Project:

OpenBazaar is an open source project to create a decentralized market platform—using Bitcoin—that has no fees and cannot be censored.

Intro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuRgHbTU9pk

Teaser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGij8FSrNc

Features:

The following list includes existing and future features that we plan (and hope in some cases) to support within OpenBazaar:

• Overview: http://www.slideshare.net/openbazaar/open-bazaar
• Kademila-like P2P system
• Reverse Index Distributed Hast Table (DHT) for Contract Listings
• Multisignature escrow addresses
• Ricardian Contracts
• Triple-Entry Accounting
• Notary and Arbitration Marketplace
• Polycentric market law (precedent shopping)
• Notary Voting Pools and Arbitration Panels
• Sophisticated Web-of-Trust System
• Reputation Pledges and Surety Bonds
• BitMessage Integration
• TOR, I2P
• Markets: fixed price sales, auctions, P2P lending, service tendering, distributed currency exchanges, securities, crowdfunding...

OpenBazaar has an ambitious feature-set that it is pursuing. If you would like to help us out in any of these areas, please hop on the IRC and/or Github to get involved!

Contact:

• Email: project@openbazaar.org
• IRC: #openbazaar (Freenode)
• Website: https://openbazaar.org
• Github: https://github.com/OpenBazaar/OpenBazaar
• Blog: http://blog.openbazaar.org/
• Forum: http://forum.openbazaar.org
• Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/openbazaar; http://www.reddit.com/r/BazaarMarkets/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/openbazaar
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnw_d1lLMFhqkL5QdsuIInQ

Team Members:

• Brian Hoffman [hoffmabc] - Project Lead
• Sam Patterson [SamPatt] - Operations Lead
• Dr Washington Sanchez [drwasho] - OpenBazaar Labs
• Dionysis Zindros [dionyziz] - Developer; Web-of-Trust Architect
• Angel Leon [gubatron] - Developer/Architect
• George Chatzisofroniou [Sophron] - Developer
• Braden Glasgow [bglassy] - Web Development Lead
• Jonas Nick [nickler] - Developer
• Delain Markos [DelainM] - Developer; OpenBazaar Labs

Project Status:

• OpenBazaar is in beta 1.0. You can read our beta guide here: https://blog.openbazaar.org/openbazaar-beta-1-0-tutorial/
• The purpose of beta 1.0 is to test out the installation of the client and discover any major bugs with what we have so far.
• Things are still a little bumpy with beta 1.0, so please be patient as we tackle each issue and bug systematically.
• We will be releasing new beta versions each month until the end of the year, where we will release version 1.0.

Support:

• While we appreciate donations, we would prefer additional developers and testers to help us iron out the bugs and start working of new features and markets to implement.
• Direct donations: https://blockchain.info/address/16uniUFpbhrAxAWMZ9qEkcT9Wf34ETB4Tt
• Tip4Commit: https://tip4commit.com/projects/728

Update #1:

• Instructions for setting up and running an OpenBazaar node on a VPS:

https://blog.openbazaar.org/guide-how-to-setuprun-an-openbazaar-node-on-a-vps/

[1713972644]

1713972644

[frankenmint]

[reserved]

Since no one else stepped up to reply 1st - thoughts notes and ideas to be posted here soon.

update: Here's my review for those who are on the fence: http://honeybadgerofmoney.com/2014/09/04/open-bazaar-anonymous-marketplace-1st-impressions-review/

If you're too lazy to read or see the pictures, imo it's just not ready to use yet, its fun to try out and I'd like to be able to see other marketplaces but as it stands I can only see my own stuff which leads me to question if anyone can see anything anyone else has off the network.

[Beastlymac]

Great looking project I think that this will provide a great opportunity for members of the community to buy and sell using bitcoin in a simplistic way.

[bbit]

How does one get started setting up a shop on OpenBazaar?

[Beastlymac]

How does one get started setting up a shop on OpenBazaar?

https://blog.openbazaar.org/openbazaar-beta-1-0-tutorial/

[bbit]

How does one get started setting up a shop on OpenBazaar?

https://blog.openbazaar.org/openbazaar-beta-1-0-tutorial/

Thanks!

Do you know if this will be easier for the common folks at some point ? Seems like a lot of steps to set-up shop.

[Beastlymac]

How does one get started setting up a shop on OpenBazaar?

https://blog.openbazaar.org/openbazaar-beta-1-0-tutorial/

Thanks!

Do you know if this will be easier for the common folks at some point ? Seems like a lot of steps to set-up shop.

I don't know for sure but since it is in beta stage it is currently for using by people that they expect to have a better understanding of software (not your usual eBay buyer for example) but for the final release I imagine it will be simpler. The post says that they will provide pre compiled versions that can be downloaded in the future for final release.

[TimeWatch]

It really makes me happy such things getting developed.I would be loving to use it asap and do some tradings and shopping as well P2P

[frankenmint]

How does one get started setting up a shop on OpenBazaar?

https://blog.openbazaar.org/openbazaar-beta-1-0-tutorial/

Thanks!

Do you know if this will be easier for the common folks at some point ? Seems like a lot of steps to set-up shop.

I'm making a writeup but literally it can't get too much easier without making a windows direct exe file.  So far you simply need linux and to run an ./configure script in the folder you've created then simply type ./run and it will but loaded for you

[dillpicklechips]

If it's using bitmessage does it mean users have to sync and get messages within a few days before they are lost for any communications between vendor and customer?

[SamuelRPatterson]

[reserved]

Since no one else stepped up to reply 1st - thoughts notes and ideas to be posted here soon.

update: Here's my review for those who are on the fence: http://honeybadgerofmoney.com/2014/09/04/open-bazaar-anonymous-marketplace-1st-impressions-review/

If you're too lazy to read or see the pictures, imo it's just not ready to use yet, its fun to try out and I'd like to be able to see other marketplaces but as it stands I can only see my own stuff which leads me to question if anyone can see anything anyone else has off the network.

Hey frankenmint, thanks for trying out the platform.

If you're unable to see other marketplaces, then you likely have a an issue with setting up UPnP or port forwarding. There are approximately 25 stores on the network with various products right now (I just bought some honey from a beekeeper in Ohio).

If you like I can help walk you through getting it working correctly. Or stop by the IRC room #openbazaar on Freenode.

This is Sam Patterson by the way, I'm Operations Lead on the project. I just joined in order to weigh in on OpenBazaar.

[Undernoxo]

Hello,

I'd like to give some suggestions:

- Give to the seller the option to sell items at the price reference of btc-e, bitstamp, etc. As a seller, It would take alot of time to check on a daily basis the price of Bitcoin and change the price at the Bazaar.

- Don't make it zero fees. Make it 0,5% or something like that to pay for escrows, arbitrages, developers and marketing.

And now the question round:

- Once the buyer purchase the item, and send the payment to the multi signature address, then the buyer ships the item and request the payment.
How and when are the funds released? What about virtual purchases, such as online games accounts?

- Do I need to have the OpenBazaar open 24/7 to have my shop listed, or once it's listed it's permanent until deleted or disabled at X inactivity level?

- Once the project is finished, or, at least, few months of running stable, will clients be able to purchase from their web browser, such as eBay, or do they need to download the Bazaar software to view the listings?


I'm kinda excited, eBay needs to be replaced by a Bitcoin by a marketplace like this.

[LitcoinCollector]

A bitcoin marketplace.

Quite interseting to see this project develop.

Also other crypto or just Bitcoin?

[jbrnt]

This is a nice idea, but if I am selling "normal" bits and pieces, I don't really need a un-censorable market place. I like the arbiter feature, still reading about it now.

[dillpicklechips]

If a merchant and buyer are in the same city, would it be possible to add the option for "Face2Face" trade. If the merchant marks an option to allow F2F they could specify a store location or a contact page for meeting in a public place. This way they can save on shipping if they are in the same location. So instead of filling in shipping information they just coordinate meeting.

[chrysophylax]

A bitcoin marketplace.

Quite interseting to see this project develop.

Also other crypto or just Bitcoin?

yes - im interested to know that also ...

granitecoin ( grn ) is what i trade in normally ... but convert a lot of others to btc ...

crysx

[linkwarz]

How much data do you envision being stored in the Ricardian contract?   

For example, many auction listings contain images and even video of the product.

There seems to be a couple issues with storing these in the contract:

1) A video or large image is a lot of data to store in ascii form (base64?) via json encoding.

2) The contract is supposed to be both human and machine readable.  The image/video cannot be read by a human without software interpretation.   Presenting the contract to the user seems to require some care because either you need to truncate/hide the encoded binary data or else display it and look really ugly.   Maybe solve this via a "human" and "raw" view of the contract?


I don't know if these are problems, but just something I wondered about how OpenBazaar handles it.....

[mladen00]

interesting

this has potential to be huge

[joesmoe2012]

SO anybody set one up yet? Let's check it out

[sugarboy321]

A bitcoin marketplace.

Quite interseting to see this project develop.

Also other crypto or just Bitcoin?

yes - im interested to know that also ...

granitecoin ( grn ) is what i trade in normally ... but convert a lot of others to btc ...

crysx

Too many scam coins out there. Need some standards like a minimum twenty million dollar market cap and at least two years in existence.

If privacy is what you want look at Darkcoin or Xcurrency.