| OpenBazaar | |
|---|---|
 Logo | |
| Original authors | Amir Taaki (DarkMarket), Brian Hoffman |
| Developer | OpenBazaar Team |
| Initial release | 4 April 2016 (2016-04-04) |
| Final release | 2.4.10 (Desktop Client)
/ 30 December 2020 (2020-12-30)1 |
| Written in | Go, JavaScript |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux |
| Size | 130 MB |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Online marketplace |
| License | MIT License |
| Website | openbazaar |
| Repository | |
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.
History
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
In 2015, Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures invested in OB1, the company behind OpenBazaar, backing the development of the decentralized marketplace.8
References
References
- "Releases · OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop". github.com. Retrieved 22 April 2021.
- Prusty, Narayan (27 April 2017). Building Blockchain Projects. Packt Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781787125339.
- Greenberg, Andy (24 April 2014). "Inside the 'DarkMarket' Prototype, a Silk Road the FBI Can Never Seize". Wired. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
- Hern, Alex (30 April 2014). "Silk Road successor DarkMarket rebrands as OpenBazaar". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
- Greenberg, Andy (6 March 2017). "The Fed-Proof Online Market OpenBazaar Is Going Anonymous". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
- "OpenBazaar launches version 1.0 with aims to become the 'uncensored' Amazon". The Daily Dot. 4 April 2016. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
- @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.
- "OpenBazaar is Entering a New Phase with Funding". OpenBazaar Blog. Retrieved 1 January 2024.