OpenBazaar

Decentralized darknet marketplace

OpenBazaar logo
Original author(s)	Amir Taaki (DarkMarket), Brian Hoffman
Developer(s)	OpenBazaar Team
Initial release	4 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	github.com/OpenBazaar
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.org

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]

References

^ "Releases · OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop". github.com. Retrieved 22 April 2021.
^ Prusty, Narayan (27 April 2017). Building Blockchain Projects. Packt Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781787125339.
^ ^a ^b 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.