Can OpenBazaar Make Free Trade Unstoppable?
A look at the bitcoin-powered network facilitating peer-to-peer exchange.
The mission of OpenBazaar is to give everyone in the world "the ability to directly engage in trade with anyone in the world for free," says Brian Hoffman, the project's 33-year-old project leader.
A peer-to-peer network for selling goods online, OpenBazaar runs on open source software that users download and install on their computers, which is similar to a BitTorrent client. The client connects them to the OpenBazaar network, where they can trade with other users. It's like eBay without eBay. All items are paid for using bitcoin.
"OpenBazaar doesn't have a central point of failure," explains OB-1 co-founder Sam Patterson. "Everyone using it is a node in a completely distributed network. If you take one user off the network, it has no impact on any of the other users."
Last year, OB1, the company that's developing the OpenBazaar network, got a million dollars in venture capital from Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and investor William Mougayar.
Since OpenBazaar has no intermediaries and no built in mechanisms for stopping a transaction from taking place, critics say it could become an ideal marketplace for stolen goods and illegal drugs—sort of a decentralized version of Silk Road. Hoffman isn't concerned. "If we work hard to allow users to self-police, to do things legally, properly, easily, cheaply," he says, "they will rush in and overwhelm whatever could possibly come in from the dark side of the internet."
Approximately 9 minutes.
Produced, narrated, and edited by Sean Malone.
Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to ReasonTV's YouTube Channel to receive notification when new material goes live.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
This is what free trade looks like. Not multi-thousand page treaties establishing trans-national bureaucracies to micro-manage trade.
How is it free, if the government isn’t steering it?
If it’s not being guided by all benevolent government, then obviously, it’s too dangerous and must be shut down, for the children.
This is the most progressive statement of all time. You should be put in charge of everyone’s everything forever, wise master.
As soon as I’m in charge, I’m gonna round up all the progs and send them on a one way trip to Pluto, to save the planet. Bwahahhaaahaa.
(looks around tentatively)
Um, Pluto’s not a planet.
(runs away)
Did I say it’s a planet? I don’t have a problem sending all the progs to a planetoid. Or anywhere else, as long as it’s far, far away and they aren’t likely to survive.
Wrong direction. Send them straight into the Sun. It would require less energy expenditure and will eliminate any possibility they will be discovered by some advanced alien race who will thaw them out, revive them, and unleash their horrors upon themselves.
Actually, it would be easier to get to Pluto than it would be to get to the sun. In fact, it’s easier to escape the solar system entirely than it is to get to the sun. Orbital mechanics can be a bit counterintuitive that way. Basically, to actually reach the sun you would have to kill your orbital velocity, so you’d need delta V equal to earth’s orbital velocity, which being this close to the sun is quite high. As a matter of fact, it’s actually easier to get to the sun from Pluto than it is from earth, on account of Pluto’s much lower orbital velocity.
Thanks to Kerbal Space Program for helping me understand orbital mechanics.
Clearly RC Dean hates your freedom. Just like those hungry guys in a hut somewhere in the middle east with sticks hate my freedom.
We obviously need to bomb RC, right now.
I’ll be bombed this evening, don’t worry.
Damn you!
How is it free, if the government isn’t steering it?
Over-under on when the first millennial demands congressional action when he gets ripped off on OpenBazaar?
But how will Daddy Trump negotiate for a better “deal” in Japanese markets for US auto workers if he can’t hold hostage US consumers ability to purchase Japanese TV sets?
An even more interesting question is: but how will Mommy Merkel negotiate for a better “deal” in foreign markets for German auto workers if she can’t hold hostage UK consumers ability to purchase Japanese TV sets? And unlike Trump, Merkel really can’t hold UK consumers hostage anymore.
Can OpenBazaar Make Free Trade Unstoppable? New at Reason
Until it gets big enough that it catches the all seeing gaze of the FedGov. Then it’s going down and the person running it, well… anyone remember Silk Road?
The point of OpenBazaar is that no one person is running it. The Feds would have to arrest thousands to millions of people to shut it down.
No they won’t. They will defeat ideas like this by making a few examples of guys who are smart enough to facilitate and the rest of those guys will back off in fear.
Just like how the government could impose gun control or confiscation.
Anyone remember Kim Dotcom?
He was in NZ last time I heard about him.
And currently fighting extradition to the United States on all sorts of charges. If the US gets hold of him, he’s screwed.
Her first album was OK if you like that sort of “music”, but it’s been downhill after that.
You know what other government…
The prosecutor threatened to throw him in a woodchipper?
So, how does/will OB1 make money?
Eric S Raymond used the “bottled water” analogy when explaining how Linux distros would succeed. Will OB1 operate like Redhat or Canonical?
How is this different than Silk Road?
I can think of two things:
(1) Decentralized/distributed peer-to-peer v centralized marketplace.
(2) Not on the darknet (I don’t think; article doesn’t say). With true encrypted peer-to-peer, you don’t need a darknet site anyway.
The more important questions. How does government ensure it gets it’s cut? And how does government ensure no one’s selling orphan slaves?
If it can’t get its cut, then DC frames the creators and jails them for killing babies with pot.
Someone’s going down, it’s inevitable. There’s no way our corrupt nanny state just sits back and watches people exchange goods and services, free of regulations and fees and oversight, and letting the government pick winners and losers.
“If I’m elected president, I will never allow two people to voluntarily trade goods and services for mutual benefit; especially if they are harming no one in the process and being mindful of property rights and contract law!!!!!” – say politicians in their heads while jerking off to themselves.
Unless it involves navigating the dark net while wearing VR goggles using a Nintendo Power Glove, I’m not interested.
Last year, OB1, the company that’s developing the OpenBazaar network, got a million dollars in venture capital from Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and investor William Mougayar.
This is what I don’t understand about this tech, including but not limited to ArcadeCity. OPenBazaar is a company. If the government arrests the officers of OpenBazaar, shuts it down and raids its offices, does the OB1 marketplace still exist? Or maybe put another way, why do we need OpenBazaar?
As long as the peer-to-peer network works, OpenBazaar will be open for business.
How much that network depends on OB1, I couldn’t say.
Whether OB1 has offshore backups of everything and a disaster response plan if the jackboots come, I also couldn’t say.
How much that network depends on OB1, I couldn’t say.
If they have investors, venture capitalists etc. giving them money, I have to presume that someone, somewhere thinks that OB1 will be central to the marketplace. They could be wrong, they might lose their shirts on the ROI, but someone believes that OB1 maintains a constant presence.
It would still exist, and the fraction of bit coins that it skims off the top would still go to their wallets. Until someone rewrites the code and gets people to adopt it instead.
I am guessing, but seems about right.
Some light on this question: https://reason.com/blog/2015/06…..tz-venture
The government hasn’t set it’s sights on it, yet.
The difference is that no single host exists for Open Bazaar. The silk road could be disrupted because ultimately it ran on one specific server.
In the case of Open Bazaar, they’ve tried to design it so that while it is easy to take down one node, but the others will keep on trucking.
Don’t worry, the IRS/DEA/ATF/BLM/CDC/FDA/USDA etc. have plenty of armed agents to go around.
And if they don’t, they’ll be happy to request more funding and hire even more!
Wasn’t Kim Dotcoms MegaUpload thingy also just a decentralized network?
No. They provided online, hosted storage.
See my followup above and eliminate all but my last sentence ( I was finally able to watch the video). Why do we need OpenBazaar?
Why do we need OpenBazaar?
Wrong question. “Need”? The question is “will people want OpenBazaar”.
Nobody needs 23 kinds of bazaars.
Is this author the same guy as the former Reason commenter of the same name?
It has always seemed to me that the people who have tended to flourish under our system are people who function as brokers and intermediaries who have a vested interest in preventing people from freely exchanging goods and services. I used to read those financial success books years ago and all of the people who wrote that books functioned as brokers of one sort or another – neither the buyer nor seller of anything, but someone who inserts himself between two people wanting to do business and skimming off the top. I’m sure brokers do provide a service – allowing people to connect who might not otherwise be able to find each other, but it still never seemed right to me.
The difference lies in whether the intermediary is mandatory or optional.
And can you imagine the cost and inconvenience if every producer of a good or service needed to run his own physical storefront?
No wholesalers, no retail aggregators, no malls – you want a shirt, you go down to the shirt district and look through vendors of individual manufacturer’s goods. Pants district is two streets over, maybe you stop for a quick bite to eat on your multi-mile trek to find a new outfit for the weekend. It’d be worse than grocery shopping in a small European town.
As IndyEleven says – the difference is whether the intermediary is voluntary or legally mandated. If its the former you sort of have to assume that the middleman is providing value above his cost or no one would use his services.
I make $4,500 per month in my basement facilitating person to person transactions that run on open source software that users download and install on their computers, which is similar to a BitTorrent client.
Want to know how?
Are there orphan slaves involved?
No. But I did outsource the data input to Some-nesia. The horror!
Assuming you’re serious – yes, I’d like to know how. I’m always interested in the details of the way different business types work.
Shoot me an email – or laugh at my naivety in public, whichever is more appropriate.
Is this one of those things I’m free to use as long as I leave my computer running with an open Internet port because as soon as I install the software my computer becomes one of those decentralized nodes?
Yes. But you are also free to turn off your computer (or close the port/turn off the program) – same as with a torrent client. Doing so reduces the effectiveness of the network but should have little effect on you.
“Brian Hoffman, the project’s 33-year-old project leader”
Who, I hope, is looking for a nice South American jungle to hide in.
If he upsets the apple cart that well, he better get on Musk’s first Jetson’s car to Mars.
This is all fine and good, but frankly, I still don’t get bitcoin’s attraction.
I mean coinage was first produced based on the estimated value of the precious metal. Of course this fluctuated, but pretty slowly over time. Then kings figured out to devalue currency but taking little bits of silver and gold out of the coins. Then substituting non-precious metals in with the gold and silver. Then notes, and greenbacks.
But it seems to me that all of this was predicated on the idea that what you were exchanging would be valued buy a largish number of people. Why the hell would bitcoin every be worth anything?
It almost seems like it has to begin to be valued by a whole lot of people at once, before it begins to be valued by anyone.
Why the hell are dollars valued? There ‘intrinsic’ value of the components is negligible compare to the face value.
So, yes, money is an communal delusion.
Seriously though – money’s value is through its utility as a marker for debts and . . . whatever the opposite of debts is – credits! Who owes me, who do I owe and how can I trade one for the other. Once Bitcoin convinced people that it was just as useful as cash for this it took off. But it did take a lot of early adopters taking a risk by accepting Bitcoin for goods and services before its general take-off.
The value is (ironically) in it’s inability to be copied, while simultaneously existing in a digital form.
Everything else in digital form is infinitely copyable. A bitcoin, there is only one copy of. It’s the only kind of digital good which is scarce. It is this digital scarcity which creates value.
But it seems to me that all of this was predicated on the idea that what you were exchanging would be valued buy a largish number of people
Well, yes.
That’s literally the definition of money, per Rothbard – a thing, of any sort [precious metal, tokens, fiat paper, anything at all] whose primary value is being a medium of exchange.
On the plus side, bitcoin is already thus “money” since it’s completely worthless for anything else.
It’s just not widely-accepted or useful money, and probably never will be.
(Contra agamemnon, it’s not “delusion” – it’s “agreement”.
There’s nothing delusive about believing any money is a money – it is one, because people use it as one.
That the money-ness is not inherent in the object but in our mutual willingness to use it as a medium of exchange is not a delusion, but a fact about us and it.)
RE: Can OpenBazaar Make Free Trade Unstoppable?
Not to worry.
Soon our beloved socialist slavers will slap these capitalist pigs from hell with enough onerous rules, regulations, red tape, to choke a sperm whale.
These people from OpenBazaar has to know who the boss is.
The mission of OpenBazaar is to give everyone in the world “the ability to directly engage in trade with anyone in the world for free
Not “trade”.
“Exchange money”.
Unless it can digitize and rematerialize their goods, it’s a payment system, not a trading system.
It’s a very useful and important part of one, to be sure.
But it’s not going to e.g. let someone in Iran “trade with” someone in the US freely – any goods exchanged that aren’t purely electronic need to go through Customs.
Twice.
(Since I can’t edit, to clarify my distinction:
“Trade” means “exchange goods for money or other goods”.
“Exchange money” is half of that.)
“Libertarians for Hillary”
“All items are paid for using bitcoin.”
Would that be the same bitcoin that has a bad habit of getting stolen out of people’s wallets to the tune of tens of millions of dollars for each heist?
“The price of bitcoin has dropped dramatically after hackers managed to steal more than $65 million-worth of the digital currency from a Hong Kong exchange.”
You’re against individuals freely choosing their own media of exchange? How NOT libertarian of you. The dollar has been debauched far more than bitcoin. An individuals purchasing power is nowhere near what it would be today had they not robbed precious metals from coins, and engaged in monetary inflation.
Well, at least you paid for your bogus post.
I thought the title read OpenBrassiere.
Hudson . although Henry `s article is flabbergasting, last thursday I bought a brand new Buick after having earned $7028 recently an would you believe ten-grand this past-munth . it’s actualy the most-comfortable job I have ever had . I began this 4 months ago and practically straight away started making a nice at least $83.
+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+ http://www.factoryofincome.com
nice post thanks admin