On 25 September, OpenBazaar announced that its platform would have to close due to financial problems. They stated that growth and adoption among users had stalled. Now all of a sudden, the project can be progressed by a generous donor who donated (among other things) Bitcoin.
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Bitcoin marketplace
OpenBazaar is an open source project that develops a protocol for the e-commerce market. It is decentralized and uses cryptocurrencies as a means of exchange. You could see it as a peer-to-peer marketplace for all kinds of goods and products.
The founder of the platform is Amir Taaki, who is not unknown in the Bitcoin community. Initially, the platform that was founded in 2014 was called DarkMarket. Four days ago they described in a Medium post that the end was near.
They were planning to close the support services of OpenBazaar, including running the nodes of the platform, the API wallet and the exchange rate.
Everything seemed like the project was coming to an end. Until yesterday, the news came on OpenBazaar’s official Twitter account that an anonymous donor was shooting up. He (or she) will cover the costs of the marketplace until the end of the year.
Donations
Although the exact amount has not been disclosed, it can be seen that more than $13,000 has been received at the donation addresses. These are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and a number of other cryptodonations.
With the first beta version released in 2014, OpenBazaar raised $1 million in seed money in less than a year with the help of Andreesen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures and William Mougayar.
The problem was that as a ‚zero fees‘ platform, it made no income and depended entirely on donations.
„Unfortunately, we simply haven’t reached the level of user growth and acceptance needed to build a sustainable business. As a result, OB1 is unable to fund the ongoing costs.
Due to the generous giver, the project can go on for another three months, but after that it will be in trouble again.