Particl’s Open Marketplace is finally just a few days away, within an arm’s reach! After years of research, development, fine-tuning, refactoring, and community-testing, it is finally ready to be unveiled as the world’s most disruptive and empowering marketplace the world has ever seen.
What’s Particl and What’s the Open Marketplace?
Particl is an entirely decentralized platform. There is no third-party or intermediary operating it or having any sort of control over its network. It uses a mix of P2P and blockchain technologies, meaning that it is exclusively run by its global community of users.
The Open Marketplace is an equally decentralized application that’s built on top of the Particl network. It allows anyone in the world to buy and sell goods and services, physical or digital, regardless of where they are located in the world. And because it is entirely decentralized, there’s no staff or support team to enforce rules and policies.
Furthermore, the Open Marketplace is completely private by default, meaning no identifiable data can be linked to any of its users. Transactions are hidden on the blockchain, images are stripped of their metadata, data exchange is encrypted, and you can even connect the marketplace through the Tor network. In other words, users of the marketplace are anonymous.
What’s important to note, though, is that the Open Marketplace is still very deep into its development phase. In fact, this mainnet release will mark the beginning of the Beta phase of development. Whereas the Alpha phase was mostly focused on building the base layer of the marketplace, Beta will be about adding various features on top of it and make it more appealing and easy to use for various types of vendors and buyers.
So what does it mean? What will you be able to do with Particl’s Open Marketplace once it first comes out? What are going to be the available features? This blog post will explain, in details, everything you need to know prior to the marketplace releasing on mainnet.
Slick, Modern, and User-Friendly Interface
One of the most important aspect of any marketplace or product is the user interface and how easy and seamless it is to use. No matter how many great features a marketplace has, consumers will opt for a simpler option if it is too difficult use or too time-consuming to learn.
And so, with this in mind, the Particl team has put tremendous focus on the Open Marketplace’s user experience and interface. In fact, the marketplace is integrated directly into Particl Desktop, the network’s flagship client, and is designed in a way that makes it easy for everyone to quickly understand how it works. Forget the usual boring and ugly look of cryptocurrency wallets — the Open Marketplace is not only very pleasant to the eye, it is also a very intuitive platform that won’t require you to pull all of the hair out of your head just to figure out how to make it work.
Yes, this first version mainnet of the marketplace is a Beta build. Yes, there are definitely a lot of improvements that are going to be made so that it can be “grandma-friendly”, but as Particl always strives to improve its products on all aspects, and as UI/UX is one of the top focus of the team, it will keep getting better and more intuitive over time. According to today’s crypto standards, Particl Desktop is damn sexy, but the team’s target is set much higher than just being “good enough” for the crypto crowd.
Buy Stuff for Crypto
- No fee
- No identifiable data generated or collected by any 3rd-party
- No registration or account creation
- Full escrow support
- Untraceable currency transactions
It is already possible to buy many things with cryptocurrencies, but most options are full of friction and they introduce third-parties back in the game. These options either require you to (1) pay a hefty fee, (2) go through many steps and account registrations, or (3) sacrifice your personal data to some company.
In most cases, these options introduce all of the above mentioned issues. In all cases, the re-introduction of third-parties into the process is proving to be highly counter-productive and more troublesome than simply spending traditional currencies. Didn’t we start using Bitcoin because we wanted to get rid of middlemen? Then, why should we have to crawl back to them when we want to spend our coins?
Particl fixes all of that in one big swoop by providing a private-by-default marketplace that allows anyone to safely buy products and services online and pay for them using cryptocurrencies, but without having to deal with any of the three issues introduced by third-parties mentioned just above. After all, Bitcoin was initially created to be an ecosystem that’s entirely independent from third-parties, as demonstrated by Satoshi’s early attempt at building a decentralized marketplace on top of the Bitcoin codebase.
The Open Marketplace is entirely decentralized and autonomous, meaning it doesn’t rely on any third-party to operate. The absence of any third-party means that you do not have to pay any fee or sacrifice your personal data in order to be able to use cryptocurrencies as actual currencies.
For the buyer, that means you will likely get access to more affordable products since vendors do not need to pay any fee, except for a small anti-spam listing fee. Keep in mind that some online vendors need to pay as high as 40% fee per sale, once every fee is paid. Sometimes, that’s even more. That is always reflected in the final price that we all pay when shopping online.
Save time and energy by instantly and directly connecting with vendors that already accept cryptocurrencies. Gone are the days you needed to continually browse the internet to find a vendor that sells the product you are looking for…and accepts cryptocurrencies at the same time.
Sell Stuff for Crypto
- No fee, except for a small listing fee of a few cents
- No identifiable data generated or collected by any 3rd-party
- No registration or account creation
- Full escrow support
- Untraceable currency transactions
Now, what if you would like to sell some stuff and accept cryptocurrencies? What if you wanted to make a business out of it? There are a few options available, but just like for buyers, they require the assistance of third-parties to function. This introduces a lot of issues for vendors such as (1) paying very high fees, (2) requiring a lot of paperwork and sign ups, and (3) sacrificing your business data to some company.
Thanks to its decentralized structure, the Open Marketplace fixes the issues mentioned above by allowing sellers to earn cryptocurrencies by putting products and services up for sale on the platform, but without using of any third-party or company. The only fee sellers are required to pay, aside from the usual cryptocurrency transaction fee, is a small anti-spam listing fee of a few cents per day. Everything else is at a big fat 0% fee. For most people selling online, this is about as big of as deal as it gets!
Imagine you’re a seller and paying something like 40% fee per transaction, or even “just” 15%. Suddenly being charged ~0% on your sales represents a huge opportunity and can change your business around in a major way. Not only can you make much more profit per sale, but you can also reduce your prices to gain a net advantage over your competitors.
And, since the Open Marketplace is a crypto-focused two-sided marketplace, meaning the platform is populated by both active sellers and buyers, it is the ideal place to sell items for cryptocurrencies without having to waste hours finding a target audience that is not only looking for your product, but also willing to spend cryptocurrencies for it.
Double Deposit Escrow System
Particl Wiki — Double Deposit Escrow System
Particl's Open Marketplace is a decentralized marketplace built with privacy at its core. It offers a low-cost, secure…particl.wiki
- No fee, except for the usual cryptocurrency transaction fee
- Infinitely scalable
- No identifiable data generated or collected by any 3rd-party
- Privacy-focused
Unlike other marketplaces, the Open Marketplace uses a fee-less and decentralized type of escrow (or resolution center). Just like the rest of the platform, this escrow system doesn’t rely on any third-party for issues to be resolved.
In fact, the Open Marketplace’s escrow system is based on the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) game-theory and requires both sellers and buyers to make a security deposit, on top of the regular payment, into a smart-contract. The security deposits are refunded, in full, to the participants when both of them mark the transaction as complete.
Not requiring any third-party for the escrow system dramatically increases privacy since no escrow agent can have access to your transaction details, conversation history, and tracking information. It allows you to own your data by ensuring that none of it can be collected by any party other than the one you are transacting with.
Particl’s double deposit escrow system is also almost free to use. Unlike most eCommerce platform, protecting yourself from a party you do not know or trust won’t require you to pay anything other than a simple cryptocurrency transaction fee.
As a comparison, some marketplaces and online commerce platforms will charge you a considerable fee, sometimes as high as 20% per transaction, just for using an escrow or mediation service. These fees tend to be higher on B2B-focused marketplaces.
Take Your Privacy Back
Particl Explained - Private Transactions
Anonymous transactions, or Anon transactions, as referred to in Particl Desktop, take privacy to the next level by not…particl.news
- Untraceable currency transactions
- No metadata when uploading files (i.e. listing pictures)
- No identifiable data generated
- No account creation, registration, or KYC required
- IP addresses can easily be hidden
You would think that a decentralized marketplace that doesn’t require any third-party, at any step of the process, would be better at keeping your data private. That, unfortunately, couldn’t be further from the truth.
In fact, blockchains are publicly auditable ledgers that permanently record your data. And while data written on a blockchain is usually pseudonymous, it is entirely possible to collect, analyze, decipher, and use it. Blockchain analysis firms are getting exponentially better at mining and deciphering data stored on blockchains. Some of the largest crypto companies are even doing it out in the open. In other words, if you’re worried about how your data is being collected and used (hint: and you should be), using a public blockchain might not be ideal for you.
That’s precisely why the Open Marketplace is private by default. That means you won’t need to do any extra step to protect your privacy and your data won’t be out there on a public blockchain for everyone to see and decipher, at any point in time. Particl’s Open Marketplace does it all for you.
By integrating the Confidential Transactions (CT) and RingCT privacy protocols into Particl’s double deposit escrow system, all currency transactions are hidden on the blockchain and can’t be traced back to users. Additionally, all data uploaded on the marketplace is stripped of all its metadata so that it can’t be reverse engineered (did you know most pictures taken by phones usually contain a geo-tag?).
The only privacy enhancing feature that is not enabled by default is the Tor network integration. While easy and very quick to set up, it requires users to manually enable it. That’s because pushing automatic updates introduces security vulnerabilities, especially man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks.
Decentralized Marketplace Moderation
Particl Explained - Decentralized Marketplace Moderation
To vote against a specific listing, users need to flag it using the Open Marketplace user interface. Once the first…particl.news
- 1 coin = 1 vote
- Delisting threshold is -9,000 coin weight
- Provably verifiable
- Cannot be gamed or produce fake votes
- No staff with special access or power involved
Usually, to keep marketplaces free of undesirable content, companies use an army of moderators and dedicated staff to delete listings and ban users. In the case of the Open Marketplace, however, that is impossible as there is no third-party involved.
Particl instead built a completely decentralized governance mechanism, based on game-theory, that allows anyone in the community to flag undesirable content off of the marketplace. The system uses a similar model as the very well known Reddit model — any user can upvote or downvote a listing, and when it reaches a certain negative threshold, that listing gets deleted from the marketplace. But unlike Reddit’s system, which is based on a 1 user = 1 vote basis, the Open Marketplace uses a 1 coin = 1 vote basis.
This system ensures that the Open Marketplace stays clean by employing what can effectively become the world’s largest community of moderators. It also ensures that only the users of the platform have an actual say on what content gets to stay on there, avoiding troll armies and ill-intended individuals.
Note: On this first mainnet version of the Particl Open Marketplace, a listing will get taken down entirely once it reaches a negative threshold of -9,000.
Community Proposals
Decentralized Project Governance Update
As we’ve highlighted in our third Community Update, the Particl team has begun working on the initial version of the…particl.news
- 1 coin = 1 vote
- Anyone can submit proposals to the community
- Anyone can vote on proposals
Using the same system that powers the decentralized moderation system, any Particl user can create or vote on a proposal using the Particl Desktop client. This introduces a lot of opportunities for buyers, vendors, and cryptocurrency users.
For example, this system could be used to reach community consensus on important decisions related to the project. The community could vote on initiatives to fund using the common Community Fund. Vendors could also make use of this feature to poll their customer base about what type of product they should be focusing. The possibilities are endless and it is entirely up to the community to use the system as they please.
And just like the decentralized moderation system, each user carries its own voting weight, as determined by the number of coins they hold. This ensures only those with a stake in the project can have a voice, a concept not too different from the stakeholder concept in publicly traded companies.
Multi-wallets
Multi-Wallets on Particl Desktop
Multi-wallets are not new to Particl. In fact, they have been available on Particl-Qt ever since Particl forked to…particl.news
Releasing on mainnet at the same time as the Particl Open Marketplace, multi-wallets allow you to manage multiple wallets within the same Particl Desktop environment. In this case, multi-wallets can be compared to ‘user accounts’ that are completely independent from each other.
Multi-wallets enable a much better degree of security and privacy as each wallet is entirely isolated from the others. That means no information or data (purchases, profiles, sales data, transaction details, and etc) can leak from a wallet to another. It is impossible, simply by looking into the blockchain, that two wallets are hosted under the same Particl Desktop instance unless the owner of the two wallets has linked them together by making payments to an address already identified as belonging to that user.
Multi-wallets can also be used to manage various profiles on the marketplace, seller or buyer, and completely keep your identity private between each of the wallets. However, market management and market user management tools will come at a later time during the Beta phase of development and won’t be part of the initial mainnet version of the marketplace.
With all of that being said, the Particl Open Marketplace will be the first privacy-focused decentralized marketplace of its kind to ever see the day and will mark an important milestone in the history of online eCommerce. It will go live, on mainnet, on the 12th of August 2019 and will include all features mentioned in this blog post.
But don’t get too complacent, this is just the beginning of one very epic journey in disrupting one of the biggest sector of the global economy. This release will also mark the beginning of the Open Marketplace’s Beta phase of development, and it will only get more interesting and exciting from here on out. Moving forward, you can expect many more features to be included to it, making it a real behemoth in both the blockchain and eCommerce worlds. You can also expect more users to start using it, as well as more third-party integrations to see the day. Suffice to say, there’s a lot of good stuff coming up for Particl, and each milestone that will be reached from this point onward will be more exciting than the previous one.
Buckle up, because this train is finally getting moving, and there ain’t no stopping after it gets released out in the open!
