
OpenBazaar 2.0, powered by IPFS - zapita
https://www.openbazaar.org/blog/openbazaar-2-0-live/
======
SamPatt
I work on OpenBazaar and I'm happy to answer any questions. The basics: It's a
fully distributed network where people engage in trade directly with each
other using cryptocurrency. Because there are no middlemen, there are no fees,
there is no centralized data collection, there are no account sign ups, and
there is no censorship.

You can view the server (Go) here:

[https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-
go](https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-go)

And client here:

[https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-
desktop](https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop)

~~~
artursapek
As someone who works in the cryptocurrency industry, it's refreshing to see
someone dedicated to building something actually useful instead of another
depressingly transparent get-rich-quick P&D scam. I will download and try OB
this week.

~~~
SamPatt
Glad to hear it, please let us know how it goes. There's a feedback button
built right into the client so it's very easy to let us hear your feedback!

~~~
lovemenot
Same here. I created a few service listings this weekend. I really like the
technology (can I use the word "platform" here?) and the vision.

I wonder about the business side though. Vendors need many buyers and vice
versa, yet download and installation presents significant friction.

For OB, what might become a kernel of serious market activity as collectibles
apparently was for eBay in their early days? I believe you are targeting
Crypto trading, right?

------
jhoechtl
This is great news! I would love to hear comments from

Tim Berners-Lee: Is this the decentralized web he envisioned and was recently
complaining that it gets increasingly lost?

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/15/tim-
berne...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/15/tim-berners-lee-
world-wide-web-net-neutrality)

Lawrence Lessig: About the legal implications in respect to his book Code is
Law.

[https://medium.com/wordsthatmatter/the-neutrality-
network-e5...](https://medium.com/wordsthatmatter/the-neutrality-
network-e5d9ecabd544)

~~~
heckerhut
Lessig: [https://youtu.be/pcYJTIbhYF0](https://youtu.be/pcYJTIbhYF0)

------
ryanar
SamPatt reminds me a lot of Ross Ulbricht[1], the creator of the Silk Road.
Ross started silk road using tor and believed this open marketplace to buy and
sell anything: drugs, child pornography, guns, bombs, organs, sex workers,
etc. would reduce the government's ability to outlaw and let people decide.
True Libertarian beliefs.

I would recommend to Sam that he reads American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the
Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silkroad [2] and figures out how far he is
willing to go for his beliefs. When national actors get involved, your life
can become miserable, you will be watched, followed, drug cartels could go
after your family to build backdoors in, NSA will go after you to build
backdoors in, there is no limit to human evil, corruption and avarice. Be
careful man.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/American-Kingpin-Criminal-
Mastermind-...](https://www.amazon.com/American-Kingpin-Criminal-Mastermind-
Behind/dp/1591848148)

------
stiangrindvoll
I know it has been ongoing for awhile, but.. just in case.. cloning the
repositories anyway, powerful application like this shouldn't be available
only on github.

~~~
SamPatt
Clone away!

Mirroring or torrenting the packages is also a good idea:

[https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-
desktop/releases](https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop/releases)

~~~
akerro
Putting a mirror in IPFS is a good idea, you can update repo directory
anytime.

------
insomniacity
> Once you’ve downloaded OpenBazaar, send an email to jenn [at] ob1.io with
> your ob:// user profile or store address AND your mailing address and we
> will send you a few of our OpenBazaar promotional items including stickers,
> pins and some surprises!

Uhhhh. Isn't that kind of an opsec fail? I mean, you can always re-register a
new profile/store, but still?

~~~
jstanley
If linking your address to your store is "an opsec fail", then yes.

If it's not, then no.

There are plenty of businesses that are perfectly happy to let people know
their address.

------
snowpanda
Hey SamPatt, what are the top 3 products being sold on OpenBazaar? Also, does
it accept Monero?

~~~
SamPatt
Multisig was needed for our escrow and until recently it wasn't in Monero, so
it's not integrated yet. Also ideally it would have SPV, but Monero can't do
that. But I like Monero and hope it does get integrated eventually.

We can't know what the most popular products are because people can engage in
trade without the rest of the network knowing about it. If you download the
app and look at search results then play around with the filters, you can make
some guesses.

~~~
fwip
What are your guesses?

~~~
SamPatt
The biggest part of the community is cryptocurrency users so I know some of
the sales are related to cryptocurrency swag and electronics. There are quite
a few artists on there as well. I know one of the biggest sellers on the 1.0
version was a Dutch man who sold homemade waffles.

------
djangowithme
The website seemed down earlier, and currently its quite slow. Im wondering,
if ipfs is distributed then why isnt it able to handle this traffic? Are there
more decentralized options?

~~~
tylersmith
The website isn't on IPFS yet. A new marketing site published to IPFS is
something we want to do but hasn't been a priority (we weren't expecting to
have a big influx of traffic).

The application is available on Github[1], and that's the part that uses IPFS.

[1] [https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-
desktop/releases](https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop/releases)

------
andrewxhill
Congrats! OB is great and openbazaar-go has been a very helpful project for
us.

~~~
SamPatt
I'm glad to hear this, if you're using OpenBazaar in your project I'd love to
hear more about it (you can join our developer calls we hold bi-weekly).

~~~
andrewxhill
At least a couple of the guys I work with have gotten help from your team on
understanding it all. We used it to get [https://github.com/textileio/textile-
go](https://github.com/textileio/textile-go) off the ground. Def not possible
with ob-go.

~~~
XR0CSWV3h3kZWg
What is it?

------
movedx
I'm wondering what the social network equivelant is to OpenBazaar? Is there
one that's as easy to setup and use?

~~~
vuldin
Scuttlebutt is the first one that comes to mind. One of the more popular
clients is Patchwork, which can be downloaded here:

[https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork/releases](https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork/releases)

Another awesome one is Fritter (a twitter clone), which can be used with the
dat protocol and through the Beaker browser. More details here:

[https://github.com/beakerbrowser/fritter](https://github.com/beakerbrowser/fritter)

~~~
deadbunny
Just checked out scuttlebutt. Everything published is public on the network
and is immutable. Forever.

Cool project for sure but seems like a bad tech to build a social network on.

~~~
masukomi
I dunno. There's something nice about holding people accountable to past
statements. There's also something nice about knowing that "If I hit submit,
I'll be stuck with this FOREVER" People tend to be a bit more thoughtful in
that scenario. The thoughtless jerks aren't, of course, but there's not much
that can be done about them in any social network.

Practically speaking the only thing anyone every _really_ complains about is
the inability to edit typos.

------
phs318u
Server’s down. Here’s the archive.org snapshot:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20180326210403/https://www.openb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180326210403/https://www.openbazaar.org/)

~~~
ttul
Unfortunately, Archive.org does not archive the downloadable installers
because of robots.txt. Is there a mirror for these binaries?

~~~
SamPatt
Yes:

[https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-
desktop/releases](https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop/releases)

~~~
ttul
Thank you.

------
tiuPapa
This sounds interesting. From what I understand, openbazaar is first a
protocol for trade and then a product. So is there any documentation on how
can I build something on top of this protocol?

------
jancsika
Have you or your team used it to trade anything yet? Would be interested to
hear what kinds of things you traded and how the process went.

Apologies if user stories are on your site-- I can't access it atm.

~~~
SamPatt
This announcement was made last November, I'm not quite sure why it's
resurfacing now (though I welcome it!), but there's been a substantial amount
of trade on the platform since it began.

I've been running the swag store and we've sold hundreds of tshirts, pins,
stickers, etc. But I always get excited when a merchant reaches out and tells
us about the sales they've gotten.

No question that it doesn't even have a small fraction of the users of major
platforms, we've got a long way to go. But there have been about 42,000 unique
nodes on the network since Nov 2017, and I'm pretty happy with that number.
It's a fairly radical proposal to have people run their own store on their own
computer, but there are at least that many people in the world willing to do
it.

Just wait until the mobile app and the browser client are finished!

~~~
flyingfences
I actually missed the announcement in November (despite being very excited
about the project) so I'm glad it was re-posted.

------
zethraeus
Why don't you take fees to support further development?

~~~
nightcracker
Disclaimer: not associated with OpenBazaar, just a devil's advocate.

If Alice and Bob were to trade drugs on my website, and I take fees for that
commerce, you can bet that law enforcement is knocking on my door very soon.

~~~
jjeaff
I'm thinking law enforcement will come knocking whether you take fees or not.
Especially with the recent legislation.

Craigslist took down their personals and they don't make any money off of it.

~~~
omgbananas
Now we need to make a distributed version of Craigslist.

------
ferrel2078
What uses do you see for this aside from illegal drugs, cybercrime, terrorism,
child porn and human trafficking? Do you feel you're making the world a better
place with this project?

~~~
SamPatt
I can speak objectively about this because I watch the network every day. Tens
of thousands of listings on the network and the vast overwhelming majority are
legal and moral. People use it because it's cheaper and more private than
alternatives.

There are some illegal drugs on the network. Thus far I haven't seen any
evidence of the other stuff you've claimed.

Perhaps it's human nature that people will eventually abuse the technology in
that way, but it doesn't mean the technology isn't valuable, and it doesn't
mean that the benefits don't outweigh the costs.

This is obviously an age-old debate about new technology, but if we had the
mindset that any technology that can be used for evil shouldn't be allowed to
exist then we wouldn't have TCP/IP and HTTP and SMS and SMTP, etc.

~~~
XR0CSWV3h3kZWg
Is there a convenient place to see the listings without installing the app?

~~~
SamPatt
The app is very easy to download and run:

[https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-
desktop/releases](https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop/releases)

But if you can't be bothered then there is a search engine as well:

[https://blockbooth.com/search/](https://blockbooth.com/search/)

------
nikkwong
Heard a lot of news about OpenBazaar. Surprised the homepage design is so,
well, confusing! If you guys need any help... :) www.beaver.digital

