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.
|