OpenBazaar Temporarily Saved From Becoming ClosedBazaar

The decentralized marketplace OpenBazaar has reportedly been saved from having to shut down after an anonymous donor has agreed to cover the costs of operating the platform until “at least the end of the year.”

The marketplace, which allows users to buy and sell goods using cryptocurrencies without a central party, has been reportedly dealing with a difficult financial situation for a long period of time. The difficulties eventually led the platform on Friday to say that it will shut down unless the community comes to the rescue with financial support.

Yesterday, however, the team behind OpenBazaar finally came out with good news, announcing on Twitter that a donor agreed to finance the operations at least for the remainder of the year.

At the time of writing (08:29 UTC), the donation wallets listed by OpenBazaar had received a total of about USD 13,000, made up of BTC 1.09 (USD 11,674) and ETH 3.416 (USD 1,225), as well as small amounts of LTC, ZEC, and BCH. The marketplace previously told Decrypt that USD 100,000 would be enough to “keep it up for the next year.”

“We still need your support though. 2021 will come soon enough. Please consider donating so that we can continue supporting free trade,” the team behind the platform followed up by saying, adding that they will work hard to “find ways to lower costs and decentralize more of the infrastructure to extend the length of your contributions!”

Before the latest solution was on the table, however, things were starting to look dramatic for OpenBazaar, with the company stating publicly last week that its messaging and wallet app, Haven, will be removed from the iOS App Store and Google Play Store on October 1 unless sufficient donations are received.

“We recommend that Haven users immediately remove funds from their wallet,” the team further wrote in its update at the time.

Haven was first announced by OB1, the company behind OpenBazaar, in 2019, with the company then describing it as a privacy-focused “super-app built on the OpenBazaar network,” enabling users to shop, chat, and transact with crypto privately from their smartphones.

As admitted by the team in last week’s update on the planned delisting of the app, however, neither the app nor the website has achieved “the level of user growth and adoption required to build a sustainable business.”
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Learn more: OpenBazaar Developer to Launch New Platform, Mulls Own Token