Described as the “next generation of uncensored trade” and a “safe untouchable marketplace,” OpenBazaar is fundamentally different from all the online black markets that have come before it, because it is completely decentralized. If authorities acted against OpenBazaar users, they could arrest individuals, but the network would survive.
– From the Daily Dot’s article: OpenBazaar is a decentralized Dark Net market that’s ‘untouchable’ by police
It’s truly incredible. Every time I become discouraged by state of the world and the decrepit and corrupt status quo, something comes along to restore my faith in the future and remind me that the time in power for these insane oligarchs is rapidly coming to an end. As I’ve said before, the advent and success of Bitcoin was the single most important development over the past few years to instill a real sense of optimism in me.
I’ve repeatedly characterized the monumental battle we face as a species as the struggle between the forces of centralization and decentralization, and I hold the view that decentralization will ultimately reign spectacularly triumphant. Not just because it is ultimately the type of system that most people want, but because it will work exponentially better that the archaic top-down systems in place today. For some prior posts on this topic see:
Thoughts on Election Day: Relax—Both Parties Are Going Extinct
Networks vs. Hierarchies: Which Will Win? Niall Furguson Weighs In
Ex-CIA Officer Claims that Open Source Revolution is About to Overthrow Global Oligarchy
Late last week, it was reported that black market site Silk Road 2.0 had been shutdown by the “authorities.” In response, I immediately tweeted the following:
Ok, so how many days before Silk Road 3.0 is up and running?
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 6, 2014
The very next day, Business Insider reported that Silk Road 3.0 was already up and running. While the latest iteration proved to be the rebranding of another site named Diabolus Market, it still demonstrated the power of the internet and the marketplace. Where there is demand, there will be product. Similarly, when technology allows for things to be done far more efficiently than in the past, technology will ultimately win.
With that in mind, I’d like to introduce readers to OpenBazaar, a decentralized marketplace that has the likes of Ebay and Amazon squarely in its sights. The Daily Dot covered it well this past Friday. Here are some excerpts:
Following a wave of Dark Net arrests that brought down the famous anonymous drug market Silk Road 2.0, all eyes have turned to a marketplace called OpenBazaar that is designed to be untouchable.
OpenBazaar is the heir apparent to a lucrative empire of illicit, anonymous, online trading worth hundreds of millions of dollars at least. And if that’s not enough, it’s also meant to beat online shopping heavyweights like eBay and Alibaba by cutting the middleman out of online shopping entirely.
Described as the “next generation of uncensored trade” and a “safe untouchable marketplace,” OpenBazaar is fundamentally different from all the online black markets that have come before it, because it is completely decentralized. If authorities acted against OpenBazaar users, they could arrest individuals, but the network would survive.
“I want a free market online to exist unencumbered because that is going to result in personal freedom, personal liberty, wellbeing in perpetuity,” Sam Patterson, OpenBazaar’s operations lead, explained on a panel last night.
OpenBazaar is open-source software that runs a peer-to-peer network that can be used with the Tor anonymizing network. With no leader, each member of the Bazaar is equal, removing not just the fees associated with black markets but also the threat of scammers like the owners of the Sheep Marketplace, who stole as much as $100 million from customers and sellers.
“In order for the network to be decentralized without a slew of Amazon or eBay datacenters hosting a single application, we use peer-to-peer software similar to BitTorrent,” project lead Brian Hoffman told CoinTelegraph.
With OpenBazaar, everyone hosts their own store and connects—anonymously if they so choose—to a larger ecosystem, where they retain the kind of control they never had on markets like Silk Road. A businessperson will be able to sell, buy, auction, lend, crowdfund, arbitrate, and create all manner of new operations to work with the software.
If you’re expecting Silk Road 3.0, think again. Silk Road’s centralized architecture, for-profit business model, and narrow and mostly illicit products run counter to OpenBazaar’s ambitions. They’re thinking bigger, broader, open, free, and more resilient.
Instead of relying on a highly targeted single leader like Silk Road’s notorious Dread Pirate Roberts, OpenBazaar allows users to choose the best third parties to arbitrate transactions. Tamper-proof and authenticated contracts (known as Ricardian contracts) are established between buyers and sellers so that third parties can audit and arbitrate every sale fairly and easily.
OpenBazaar, which has been funded entirely through donations so far, has a large and active team of developers volunteering for it, including Dionysis Zindros, a software engineer at Google who also works on security, architecture, and implementation at OpenBazaar.
The project is currently at beta version 2.3. Despite the considerable advancements made in the past six months, OpenBazaar is not ready for the spotlight quite yet.
Check out some additional thoughts from Sam Patterson, OpenBazaar’s operations lead, in the video below:
While the project is only in beta at the moment, this is a exciting new development and I will be paying close attention.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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mike i’ve been following the ‘decentralized’ ‘services’ and market places for a while now.
for all the shit people like amir takai talk, the work is in building these systems. they are not yet built, nor functioning and will not be for quite some time.
but they do represent a way of transacting with taxation, which is a big political no-no for the government. the stories of these ‘markets’ taking over the world are highly exaggerated as the political power of governments to simply harrass individuals, isp’s and shut down entire sectors of the net——–cannot be overstated.
the libertarian dreamer in people seems most absurd when they claim the internet will be the tool to solve everything. just as much as the pistol was the tool to solve things.
there is no way of getting around the need to replace governments directly. the ‘exit’ around governmetn by building your ‘own’ platforms is bullshit.
the net is not this fair tale of dencetralization that bitcoiners would like it to be, because of countervailing forces of government and corporate sector.
look at online music. yea, much of its free, but not all of it. not much of it.
and this is not to mention the very serious and difficult problems of running a decentralize ‘trust’ system of reputation. in silk road–you have an admin. the very point of weakness is also a point of strength as a central admin has the power to reinforce punish trust violators and scammers on the network.
any truly decentralized network would have a major problem with being succesful as the negative feedback of success is that scammers and cheaters are then drawn to prey upon the ‘open’ system of reputational trust.
they will try and hack it and find a way of using the sytsems open attributes to profit off of the naive trusting individual. the puzzle of decentralized reputational feedback systems is one that i have not yet found any satisfactory solutions to, despite the endless droning of many bitcoin 2.0 folks who think trust and repuational system can function just about normally in a scaleable marketplace .
no one has yet put any of their ‘solutions’ to the test. so i am eager but skeptical to see what is built.
Neither over-centralization nor over-decentralization is optimal. What is generally optimal is a balanced state in which neither centralization nor decentralization is too much. This balance will vary depending on culture. But good that you are using the term centralization, rather than rightist or leftist ideology, because both the political Right and Left were originally formed to decentralize, and that is still the ideal of both. And both the established Left and Right have currently been over-centralizing, and what is needed is grass roots Right and Left to work together, leaving ideological differences aside and focusing on issues.
This looks awesome.