Decentralized marketplace OpenBazaar appears poised to make a comeback after being shut down more than two years ago, according to some social media and GitHub updates.
A GitHub repository on the collaborative software development site shows progress as recently as April 12 in building a new version of the marketplace, which closed in 2020. On April 9, Brian Hoffman, OpenBazaar's former project lead and CEO of OB1, the for-profit company that developed its software, tweeted about the progress of the "new" version of the marketplace, saying It "got more and more interesting that day."
In his response, Hoffman was asked how the marketplace would be different this time, since OpenBazaar was previously forced to close due to financial problems and poor user growth. Hoffman replied "freedom to explore," and speculated that outside influences were responsible for its initial downfall. The first hint that OpenBazaar would be making a comeback came from a tweet by Hoffman on March 28, in which he linked to OpenBazaar's GitHub page, revealing that he had been working on a new version of the marketplace in the programming language Rust.
Just a few hours later, OpenBazaar's official account also posted a tweet, saying that "it is time to rise from the ashes" and "work has begun". The OpenBazaar website is currently displaying the message "openbazaar 3.0 - coming soon," which is further evidence that the marketplace may be relaunching. After the exchange shut down in 2020, Hoffman tweeted that future iterations of OpenBazaar will need to be more independent of OB1, but did not provide more information on how this might work.
Touted as a decentralized eBay alternative, OpenBazaar was first launched in 2014. It allows users to directly interact with each other to transact with Bitcoin. The marketplace was originally called "DarkMarket," but was changed to OpenBazaar after community input to improve its public image.
