OpenBazaar was an open source project developing a protocol for e-commerce transactions in a fully decentralized marketplace.[2] It used cryptocurrencies as medium of exchange and was inspired by a hackathon project called DarkMarket.

Original author(s)Amir Taaki (DarkMarket), Brian Hoffman
Developer(s)OpenBazaar Team
Initial release4 April 2016; 8 years ago (2016-04-04)
Final release
2.4.10 (Desktop Client) / 30 December 2020; 3 years ago (2020-12-30)[1]
Repository
Written inGo, JavaScript
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Size130 MB
Available inEnglish
TypeOnline marketplace
LicenseMIT License
Websiteopenbazaar.org Edit this on Wikidata

History

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Amir Taaki and a group of programmers from Bitcoin startup Airbitz created a decentralized marketplace prototype, called "DarkMarket", in April 2014 at a Bitcoin Hackathon in Toronto.[3] DarkMarket was developed as a proof of concept in response to the seizure of the darknet market Silk Road in October 2013.[4] Taaki compared DarkMarket's improvements on Silk Road to BitTorrent's improvements on Napster.[3]

After the hackathon, the original creators abandoned the prototype and it was later adopted and rebranded to OpenBazaar by a new team of developers.[5] On 4 April 2016, OpenBazaar released their first version, which allowed users to buy and sell goods for Bitcoin.[6] The company announced the closure of their servers on 15 January 2021.[7]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Releases · OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop". github.com. Retrieved 22 April 2021.
  2. ^ Prusty, Narayan (27 April 2017). Building Blockchain Projects. Packt Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781787125339.
  3. ^ a b Greenberg, Andy (24 April 2014). "Inside the 'DarkMarket' Prototype, a Silk Road the FBI Can Never Seize". Wired. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  4. ^ Hern, Alex (30 April 2014). "Silk Road successor DarkMarket rebrands as OpenBazaar". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  5. ^ Greenberg, Andy (6 March 2017). "The Fed-Proof Online Market OpenBazaar Is Going Anonymous". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  6. ^ "OpenBazaar launches version 1.0 with aims to become the 'uncensored' Amazon". The Daily Dot. 4 April 2016. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  7. ^ @openbazaar (4 January 2021). "It is with heavy hearts that we announce that @OB1Company will be decommissioning most of the infrastructure powering important parts of OpenBazaar on January 15th" (Tweet) – via Twitter.