{"id":28232,"date":"2014-09-02T20:35:40","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T20:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe7a300d2697"},"modified":"2014-09-02T20:35:40","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T20:35:40","slug":"openbazaar-looking-beta-testers-1409690140","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/press-releases\/openbazaar-looking-beta-testers-1409690140","title":{"rendered":"OpenBazaar Looking for Beta Testers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The online marketplace ecosystem is currently run by companies like Amazon and Ebay that each acquire respective fees for their service and process most of their payments with credit cards and PayPal, which also take additional fees. But what happens when you decentralize these markets, and allow for peer-to-peer business transactions utilizing bitcoin? OpenBazaar.<\/p>\n

OpenBazaar<\/a> is an open source project to create a decentralized network that allows people to trade with each other directly online, using bitcoin, without paying sellers fees and without censorship.<\/p>\n

It was formed when Brian Hoffman, the project lead, forked the Dark Market code back in April.<\/p>\n

If you wish to sell something, you post a product listing on the site with the product\u2019s specs. After publishing, it is sent to the distributed peer-to-peer OpenBazaar network. When someone searches for the product and finds your listing, you both must agree on a price that is then sent to a third party called a notary, which is actually also part of the OpenBazaar network. All three parties must agree to the stipulations of the business transactions. The buyer sends the funds, and the seller ships the product. When they buyer gets his stuff he marks it as received, which automatically releases the funds to the seller.<\/p>\n

I met Project Lead Sam Patterson last week at the Cryptolina Bitcoin Conference where he informed me that the team is currently looking for beta testers.<\/p>\n

I had a few questions for Sam and here\u2019s what he had to say.<\/p>\n

What is the vision for OpenBazaar?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We want to empower people to interact directly with each other online for their trade, not have to rely on centralized services that charge fees and monitor your commerce. Once people have the ability to engage in commerce with individuals around the world directly, using Bitcoin as payment, the potential for a new era of trade emerges. This is trade without borders. Trade without censorship. Trade without the middleman taking a cut. This will be the first truly free market online, and when people act freely amazing things happen.<\/p>\n

What are you currently busy with?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are launching the beta at the end of August, and it\u2019s a rush to get everything in order to meet the deadline. We believe in the idea of getting the simplest product out as early as possible so we can get feedback from the community, and so we\u2019ve set some ambitious goals for<\/p>\n

When does it go online?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s online now, if you go to the Github and set it up yourself. But it\u2019s not usable for transactions quite yet. The beta launches end of August, when it will be easier to install and use<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe need beta testers,\u201d concludes Sam, \u201cand we need them to submit bugs and be patient waiting for fixes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Submit bug reports and any other ideas for improvement to OpenBazaar\u2019s Github.<\/p>\n

\u201cFeel free to drop into our IRC room on Freenode at #openbazaar,\u201d reads the website. \u201cWe\u2019re happy to help you get a node running or answer your questions. Obviously any code submitted to the project is much appreciated! You can also donate Bitcoin to this address<\/a> to help us pay for seed servers, the website, and other projects costs like conferences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The online marketplace ecosystem is currently run by companies like Amazon and Ebay that each acquire respective fees for their service and process most of their payments with credit cards and PayPal, which also take additional fees. But what happens when you decentralize these markets, and allow for peer-to-peer business transactions utilizing bitcoin? OpenBazaar. OpenBazaar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3582,"featured_media":28231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[505,3453,2362,708],"class_list":["post-28232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-press-releases","tag-fees","tag-openbazaar","tag-people","tag-transactions"],"author_data":{"id":3582,"name":"Kevin Cruz","nicename":"kevin-cruz","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/bitcoin-schmitcoin-promo-image-1-2-96x96.png"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/openbazaar-looking-for-beta-testers.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}