OpenBazaar marketplace says it’s set to ‘grow again from the ashes’

The decentralized marketplace OpenBazaar appears set for a comeback after it was shut down over two years ago, according to a number of social media and GitHub updates.

A GitHub repository on the collaborative software development site shows progress as recent as April 12 on building a new version of the marketplace which was shut down in 2020.

Brian Hoffman, the former project lead at OpenBazaar and CEO of OB1 — the for-profit company which developed its software — tweeted on April 9 of the progress made on a “new” version of the marketplace saying it is “getting more interesting by the day.”

Hitting 1,000 lines of code on the new @openbazaar repo. This is getting more interesting by the day.

— brian hoffman (@brianchoffman) April 8, 2023

In the replies, Hoffman was asked how the marketplace would be different this timegiven that due to financial issues and poor user growth, OpenBazaar was forced to shut down.

Hoffman replied speaking of “freedom of exploration” and inferred that outside influence had contributed to its initial downfall.

I’m letting it go where it goes. No investor input or outside influences. Freedom of exploration.

— brian hoffman (@brianchoffman) April 9, 2023

The first hints that OpenBazaar would be launching a comeback came in a tweet from Hoffman on March 28, where he linked OpenBazaar’s GitHub page that showed he’d been working on a new version of the marketplace in the programming language Rust.

https://t.co/NrJy7OqKJJ
it's begun… pic.twitter.com/FkOOVNsc8c

— brian hoffman (@brianchoffman) March 28, 2023

Just hours later OpenBazaar’s official account also posted a Tweet, which said “it is now time to grow again from the ashes,” and that “work has begun.”

work has begun. we will need recruits. we will need your ideas, your thoughts.

— OpenBazaar (@openbazaar) March 28, 2023

Adding to the evidence that the marketplace appears likely to relaunch, the OpenBazaar website currently bears the message “openbazaar 3.0 – coming soon.”

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After the exchange had shut down in 2020, Hoffman tweeted that a future iteration of OpenBazaar would require more independence from OB1, but provided no more information about how this might work.

The future of @openbazaar will be more independence from @OB1Company. More news on that soon.

— brian hoffman (@brianchoffman) September 28, 2020

OpenBazaar has been hailed as the decentralized eBay alternative and was first launched back in 2014. It allowed users to interact directly with each other to make transactions using Bitcoin (BTC).

The marketplace initially had the name “DarkMarket,” but changed it to OpenBazaar following community input in an attempt to improve its public image.

Cointelegraph contacted Hoffman and OpenBazaar for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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