Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

After Silk Road 2.0 Bust, Eyes Turn To 'Untouchable' Decentralized Market

Posted by Soulskill on from the for-relatively-touchable-values-of-untouchable dept.

apexcp sends this article from The Daily Dot: Following a wave of Dark Net arrests that brought down the famous anonymous drug market Silk Road 2.0, all eyes have turned to a marketplace called OpenBazaar that is designed to be impossible to shut down. Described as the "next generation of uncensored trade" and a "safe untouchable marketplace," OpenBazaar is fundamentally different from all the online black markets that have come before it, because it is completely decentralized. If authorities acted against OpenBazaar users, they could arrest individuals, but the network would survive. "If you're thinking about OpenBazaar as Silk Road 3.0, you're thinking about it much too narrowly," said OpenBazaar operations lead Sam Patterson in an interview last night. "I actually think it's much more powerful as eCommerce 2.0."

5 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Look on the bright side ... by elephantdog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    not all users will be breaking the law, the first item sold on it was Honey, I plan to buy and sell completely legal items on there, I'm not a fan of ebay and their fees, or their rules, like "no food" etc, a lot of perfectly legal items that I can sell on the street legally can't be sold on Ebay

  2. This is missing one of Silk Road's major features by sirwired · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is missing one of Silk Road's major features of "washing" your BitCoins through a central pool. Without the laundering facilities available, it becomes a lot easier to track sellers down.

    I suppose a decentralized eBay-ish thing could be handy, but without the money laundering, it's a lot less useful.

  3. Re:Look on the bright side ... by elephantdog · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He said not to think of it as Silk road 3.0 but e-commerce 2.0, most of the bitcoin community is seeing it as a replacement to Ebay, but yes sure people can sell anything on there I guess, but that is law enforcements job, just as when people today share illegal movies on bit torrent, plenty of legal stuff on there

  4. The future of capitalism by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After watching the video with the guy from OpenBazaar, and from things I've read lately about where capitalism is going, I have to wonder, where is the end game in all this?

    AirBnB threatens the hotel/motel paradigm, Lift and Uber threaten taxis, now OpenBazaar threatens online commerce, bitcoin, etc;
    These new services appear to be starting a crack, albeit a small one, in the current model of how money is made and by who.

    --
    We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
    1. Re:The future of capitalism by silfen · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't thing there's going to be any kind of fundamental change in capitalism.

      Well, there is a change in the sense that these businesses make rent seeking harder. That is, it forces companies to compete in the market (true capitalism) vs running to government to ask for handouts or favorable treatment (crony "capitalism").