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Comment by SamPatt | Hacker News Reader

Hey everyone, Sam Patterson from OpenBazaar and OB1 here. We're excited about this funding, and I'm happy to take any questions you might have.

We're always looking for developers on the project as well. It's open source, and primarily python. Here's the repo:

https://github.com/OpenBazaar/OpenBazaar

We have a particular interest in folks with p2p networking knowledge, but welcome devs with any background.

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Is it expected that most of the goods and services sold on OpenBazaar will be illegal, as is the situation with Tor and I2P?

If it's completely decentralised, presumably there is nothing to stop that?

What incentives are there for legitimate business to sell on OpenBazaar, as opposed to remaining on 'traditional' web channels (e.g. their own websites, Amazon).

It is not expected that most goods will be illegal, we anticipate that it will be reflective of society at large - mostly legal with a small proportion doing illicit things.

> What incentives are there for legitimate business to sell on OpenBazaar, as opposed to remaining on 'traditional' web channels (e.g. their own websites, Amazon).

Traditional marketplaces take a cut of the transactions, and monitor the data of their users. A decentralized marketplace has no middleman to take a cut or monitor the data. It's removing an intermediary entirely; trade is directly between the buyer and seller (with a voluntarily chosen third party, if they so chose).

Is there any way for buyers to verify the authenticity of legitimate sellers on the marketplace? If so, is it purely a 'buyer feedback' system?

According to the website there is a web of trust to establish reputation and you can set up voting pools whose members are those you trust. So it is based on buyer feedback.

https://blog.openbazaar.org/what-is-openbazaar/

https://gist.github.com/dionyziz/e3b296861175e0ebea4b

What's to prevent malicious sellers from creating fake positive buyer feedback?

Most trades have a buyer, a seller, and a third party arbiter. When an agreement is made the bitcoin goes into something like escrow. Any two of the three parties together can release the money. In a normal trade, when the buyer receives the product he OKs the transaction and the bitcoin is released to the seller. If the product is not delivered or isn't what was promised the buyer can appeal to the arbiter. The arbiter settles the dispute. The arbiter can also release the funds if the buyer fails to OK the transaction

I don't think an arbiter is strictly required so if a big name company enters the market you can probably avoid paying an arbiter. Generally though, in a ebay like situation you'll probably need to pick a trust worthy arbiter and pay them accordingly.

Considering eBay and Amazon fees, OpenBazaar might be quite disruptive.

what was the incentive for donating 1m if it's basically free, doesn't collect data, and is not centrally controlled?

An easy way for them to make money is to follow https://Discourse.org or https://ghost.org biz model.

These are Open Source, but you can pay them to host for you.

My friend is working on this, https://provistor.com/ check it out

All of the investors are invested in other Bitcoin-related ventures. OpenBazaar has the potential to get people to actually spend Bitcoins, which people don't really do now. That then has the potential to increase Bitcoin's value, which will help their other Bitcoin-related investments.

For example, Andreessen Horowitz has invested quite a lot of money into Bitcoin mining operation, 21 Inc, who in turn have mined a lot of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin's price goes up, the value of 21 Inc's holdings go up.

There are many opportunities where you can make money here. Think about an arbitrage service in case of a dispute. Or an escrow service. Or a reputation service maybe?

I think that the can be only One marketplace since it relies heavily on the network effect. For OB to be first and biggest is a big deal.

The platform isn't centrally controlled, but that doesn't mean that companies can't offer services to users on the network.

It's similar to Bitcoin, which has no central control, but now has an ecosystem of businesses that support Bitcoin users.

Our goal with OB1 is to build the OpenBazaar network and gain large adoption, and then offer those users services (such as dispute resolution, store hosting, search).

>> OB1 will aid decentralized commerce by offering services such as dispute resolution ...

Help me OB1, you're my only hope.

>what was the incentive for donating 1m

BitTorrent received $41M in VC funding, and is free, does not collect data, and is not centrally controlled. They monetize through content distribution software integrations, business software, a search engine, and an ad supported Torrent client. I imagine OpenBazaar will monetize in similar ways.

Note: >to develop the OpenBazaar protocol and client, _and build the first business on top of the OpenBazaar network._

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