| OpenBazaar | |
| Logo Caption: | OpenBazaar logo |
| Logo Size: | 256px |
| Logo Alt: | OpenBazaar logo |
| Author: | Amir Taaki (DarkMarket), Brian Hoffman |
| Developer: | OpenBazaar Team |
| Discontinued: | yes |
| Latest Release Version: | 2.4.10 (Desktop Client) |
| Latest Release Date: | [1] |
| Programming Language: | Go, JavaScript |
| Operating System: | Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux |
| Size: | 130 MB |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Online marketplace |
| License: | MIT License |
OpenBazaar was an open source project developing a protocol for e-commerce transactions in a fully decentralized marketplace.[2] It used cryptocurrencies as medium of exchange and was inspired by a hackathon project called DarkMarket.
Amir Taaki and a group of programmers from Bitcoin startup Airbitz created a decentralized marketplace prototype, called "DarkMarket", in April 2014 at a Bitcoin Hackathon in Toronto.[3] DarkMarket was developed as a proof of concept in response to the seizure of the darknet market Silk Road in October 2013.[4] Taaki compared DarkMarket's improvements on Silk Road to BitTorrent's improvements on Napster.[3]
After the hackathon, the original creators abandoned the prototype and it was later adopted and rebranded to OpenBazaar by a new team of developers.[5] On 4 April 2016, OpenBazaar released their first version, which allowed users to buy and sell goods for Bitcoin.[6] The company announced the closure of their servers on 15 January 2021.[7]