Decentralized marketplace OpenBazaar looks set for a comeback after being shut down more than two years ago, according to a number of social media and GitHub updates.
A GitHub deposit on the collaborative software development site shows progress as recent as April 12 on building a new version of the marketplace that was closed in 2020.
Brian Hoffman, the former project manager at OpenBazaar and CEO of OB1 – the for-profit company that developed his software – tweeted on April 9 of progress being made on a “new” Marketplace release saying he ” becomes more interesting by the day.”
Hit 1,000 lines of code on the new @openbazaar deposit. It is getting more and more interesting day by day.
— Brian Hoffman (@brianchoffman) April 8, 2023
In the responses, Hoffman was asked how the market would be different this time around, given that due to financial issues and poor user growth, OpenBazaar was forced to shut down.
Hoffman responded by speaking of “freedom of exploration” and inferred that outside influence contributed to his initial downfall.
I let him go where he goes. No investor entry or outside influence. Freedom to explore.
— Brian Hoffman (@brianchoffman) April 9, 2023
The first hints that OpenBazaar would be throwing a comeback came in a tweet from Hoffman on March 28, where he linked to OpenBazaar’s GitHub page that showed he was working on a new Marketplace release in the Rust programming language.
it’s started… pic.twitter.com/FkOOVNsc8c
— Brian Hoffman (@brianchoffman) March 28, 2023
A few hours later, the official OpenBazaar account also posted a Tweet, which said “now is the time to rise from the ashes” and that “the work has begun”.
work has started. we will need recruits. we will need your ideas, your reflections.
— OpenBazaar (@openbazaar) March 28, 2023
Adding to evidence that the market looks likely to rebound, the OpenBazaar website currently carries the message “openbazaar 3.0 – coming soon”.
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After the exchange shut down in 2020, Hoffman tweeted that a future iteration of OpenBazaar would require more independence from OB1, but offered no further information on how it might work. .
The future of @openbazaar will be more independent of @OB1Company. More news on this soon.
— Brian Hoffman (@brianchoffman) September 28, 2020
OpenBazaar has been hailed as the decentralized eBay alternative and was first launched in 2014. It allowed users to directly interact with each other to transact using Bitcoin (BTC).
The market was initially called “DarkMarket”, but changed it to OpenBazaar following community feedback in an effort to improve its public image.
Cointelegraph contacted Hoffman and OpenBazaar for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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