Openbazaar.org : decentralized network for peer to peer commerce online

OpenBazaar.org is an open source project to create a decentralized network for peer to peer commerce online — using Bitcoin — that has no fees and no restrictions. A decentralized markets for decentralized money. OpenBazaar is a new way to trade online. By running a program on the computer, users can connect directly to other users in the OpenBazaar network and trade with them. This network isn’t controlled by any company, it’s a decentralized network that isn’t run by any organization at all. This means there are no mandatory fees to pay, and that trades are censorship-resistant.

OpenBazaar was released on April 4th. OpenBazaar is a different way to do online commerce. Instead of visiting a website, you download and install the program on your computer that directly connects you to other people looking to buy and sell goods and services with you. This peer to peer network isn’t controlled by any company or organization – it’s a community of people who want to engage in trade directly with each other.

Since its release Openbazaar has been downloaded 54,600 times. It is the world’s first decentralized exchange for fiat/cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is only supported method at Openbazaar. But bitcoin has its own benefits over other payment methods. Bitcoin has low fees to use, and there’s no permission required to send or receive Bitcoin either. Bitcoin also allows for an escrow system that is very secure. Bitcoin gives people more control over their own money, and this fits in perfectly with OpenBazaar, a tool designed to give people back control over their own online trade.

This is how payments work at OpenBazaar.org

The picture below shows the way of payments implemented by OpenBazaar. There are three different payment flows in OpenBazaar. One flow shows direct payments, and two flows show different types of moderated payments.

Financing

Investors-Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Undisclosed Investors

Investor type-Venture Capital

And William Mougayar-Angel Investor (Individual)

Participating Rounds-Seed VC

Gold and Silver Bazaar

This OpenBazaar store sells gold and silver coins. Store handle: @GoldandSilverBazaar. Within the first 48 hours of the release two sales had been done. A 50 gram silver bar to a customer in France and a silver “CopBlock Quarter” to someone in the USA.

Some Limitations

1.A user’s store must remain online for other users to see and purchase listings of goods and services. The data around listings is hosted by the store itself and not replicated elsewhere.

2. In the current design, stores have only rudimentary inventory management tools. They cannot import/export listings from other platforms (e.g. TaoBao, eBay, Shopify), or specify the number of stock available for purchase. For the time being, listings need to be manually removed when they are sold out, similar to Craigslist and other classifieds.

3. The reputation system on OpenBazaar is currently limited to buyers leaving reviews on transactions they’ve had with vendors, which are public. Reviews can only be left if a Bitcoin transaction has occurred, which prevents users from leaving reviews without actually engaging in some sort of transaction.

Tutorial for openbazaar

1.Download and Install Openbazaar

2.Run openbazaar after installation complete.

3.View Openbazaar listings and Store.

4.Buy Something

5.Make Payment

Conclusion

It is a great initiative and opportunity. One small step for bitcoin, one giant leap for decentralization. The worlds first decentralized exchange for bitcoins.And we all know about the benefits that bitcoin provide.

Lowering fees, no permission required to send or receive Bitcoin either. As many of us involved with cryptocurrency know, Bitcoin is now running at 100% of capacity. Bitcoin is and has been running at an average of around 70% of it’s block size capacity for all of 2016. There is still considerable space for more transactions. With several solutions in the works we can expect bitcoin to handle more than enough transactions if OpenBazaar becomes a big success.