A New Breakthrough for Privacy and eCommerce 🔥

It has now been ten months since the first version of the Particl marketplace — an open and decentralized marketplace — has been live on mainnet. Since August 2019, hundreds of sales have been made all around the world in full anonymity, without paying any fee, and without any intermediary. And it’s about to get much better with Particl’s coming massive upgrade!

N95 Masks for Sale, Uncensored, on Particl

From masks and survival gears banned on most online marketplaces during COVID-19 to video games, gift cards, physical Bitcoin Casascius coins, hemp, or art, all kinds of goods are already being exchanged on Particl’s open marketplace. But imagine if you could now set up your own marketplace or storefront and share it with who you want? What would you sell?

You want to start a specialized freelancer marketplace? A public CBD shop? A precious metal trading community? A private marketplace for Casascius and other collectible coins? A place to trade NFTs without any risk of being scammed? A physical crypto art marketplace to take out middleman fees? Or maybe you just want to sell your Reddit account full of karma?

Then you will love Particl’s next upgrade, Particl Desktop 3.0 (Multi-Markets), because it enables this, and much, much more than ever before.

Keep reading for a detailed breakdown of everything Particl Desktop 3.0 will have to offer!

Do you already know all about Particl? Then jump to straight to the Particl Desktop 3.0 Update section of this blog post.

Table of Content

What’s the Particl Marketplace?

Particl is an autonomous and decentralized marketplace protocol that allows people to safely and privately buy and sell anything online without requiring any third-party to be involved. No payment processor, no marketplace operator, no bank, no moderator, no data miner, no nothing. Just you, the person you’re transacting with, and a fully automated two-party escrow system to prevent scams.

Particl’s Open Marketplace on Particl Desktop V2

This total absence of third-party involvement is completely changing the eCommerce game and is opening up a ton of possibilities that simply aren’t possible otherwise. It means that for-profit companies are no longer required for two people to safely transact on the internet. And because no single party runs the Particl marketplace, there is no one charging fees to pay for expenses and draw revenue. That’s monumental, especially when you consider that online marketplaces typically charge 5% to up to even 50% for the services they offer. A fee that is naturally reflected in the retail price of products and services sold on these marketplaces.

And more than just that, Particl also enables this kind of peer-to-peer eCommerce in a totally private and anonymous way. In fact, a mix of privacy-preserving protocols such as RingCT, CT, stealth addresses, Tor, rock-solid encryption, and more, guarantees that you won’t leave any sort of digital footprint behind when shopping or selling online. Say goodbye to personal information leaks, uncomfortably accurate ads, the use of your own data against you, and awkward moments. Particl is data-free and thus, scandal-free!

Particl is, put simply, eCommerce 2.0. It is DeCommerce!

Its Evolution Since it Launched

The Particl team has pushed a lot of releases to the marketplace since its initial mainnet release on the 12th of August 2019 (Particl Desktop 2.0.0). These releases have seen the addition of several important features and a significant improvement in all components.

Here are some of the main improvements and added features to the marketplace since its release:

There is no doubt, the Particl marketplace has progressed smoothly along its roadmap since its mainnet release. It’s been significantly improved in performance and feel, and it has also received a bunch of new features that are now standard use for any Particl user today.

A Completely New Marketplace and Desktop Application

Since the release of Bitcoin payments on Particl (Particl Desktop 2.3.0) on the 25th of November, the team has been working on its next major feature release (Particl Desktop 2.4.0) — Multi-Markets, or “Infinite Markets” as referenced by some in the community.

Multi-Markets in a NutshellMulti-Markets add the ability to create and join an infinite number of user-created markets and storefronts on the Particl network. It essentially upgrades the Particl marketplace by connecting it to a wide network of user-created markets. This is a major item of Particl’s current roadmap.

Initially, Particl Desktop 2.4.0 was only intended to add the ability to create or join an infinite number of markets and storefronts, but since this new feature required so much of the codebase to be changed, it turned into a great opportunity to make a major leap forward and as a result, became much bigger than anticipated. Here’s why…

Re-Writing Particl Desktop

Particl Desktop is already a great cryptocurrency wallet. It looks good, feels good, and does everything, and more, that you’d typically need from a crypto wallet. As proof, it has often been forked and adapted by other open-source projects to serve as the main desktop wallet.

But it’s also starting to show its time. Keep in mind, Particl Desktop is already almost three years old now and the team has acquired a lot of experience and knowledge since then.

It may have been ideal for a simple cryptocurrency wallet and early versions of the marketplace, but it has started to show its limitations when tested against some of the most ambitious features and functionalities of the marketplace such as multi-markets.

And so, because multi-markets already required so much work to be done to both the marketplace codebase and the desktop application, the Particl team decided to completely re-write both of them and take it up to the next level.

As such, all components of Particl Desktop and most of the marketplace codebase have been significantly improved and are now supported by a new and much more modern codebase.

This is why the next version of Particl Desktop will now be numbered as Particl Desktop 3.0.0 instead of 2.4.0.

Adding More Features Than Initially Planned

Preview of the Marketplace User Dashboard Coming to Particl Desktop 3.0

Along the way of re-writing everything, it also became evident that some key features of the marketplace initially planned for later on could actually be integrated into the new codebase right away. This would delay the multi-markets release a bit, but would ultimately save a lot of time further down the road and simplify the integration of the new codebase into the desktop application. This is what the team chose to do in a bid to always offer the highest quality around.

For this reason, the release of multi-markets has been delayed by a bit longer than initially expected, but far from a delay, it’s given the team the opportunity to create a mindblowing product that will change the game of decentralized online commerce.

What’s New With Particl Desktop 3.0

Particl Desktop V2 is about to retire and the new kid on the block, V3, is coming fast! More than just a number change, this release changes the entire back-end code of the desktop application and introduces several features. It is, quite literally, Particl’s biggest upgrade since its mainnet launch almost three years ago.

Here are just some of what to expect from Particl Desktop 3.0:

Particl Desktop

  • A much lighter, faster, more responsive and modern desktop application
  • A modular approach and separation of wallets, markets, and the swap engine into different and independent modules
  • All modules (including marketplace) enabled by default on first startup
  • Massively improved user interface and user experience, more intuitive and user-friendly
  • An almost uncountable number of bug fixes, improvements, and tweaks to most components of the wallet and marketplace (many thanks to all the Particl community for the valuable feedback ❤ )
  • A complete overhaul of the in-app swap engine interface
  • SDK friendly desktop application

Marketplace Improvements

  • Addition of a brand new marketplace user dashboard with advanced notifications and quick access to the main sections of your account
  • Addition of multi-markets and the ability to create an infinity of markets and storefronts
  • Addition of the Market Browser and the ability to browse and join any user-created market or storefront. It’s also possible to promote markets in the Market Browser.
  • Improvements to Question and Answers section of listings — easier access and more comprehensive notifications
  • Addition of user identities and profiles
  • Addition of custom categories which can be set per market or storefront
  • Massive reduction in listing fees, will be reduced by more than 80% of current cost. The cost of listing a product on Particl will then be well under a cent worth of PART
  • Improvements to how Particl Desktop, the marketplace codebase, and the SMSG network interact with each other
Note: Because the V2 and V3 versions of Particl Desktop and the marketplace are so radically different, listings won’t be compatible with each other’s version. In other words, listings published on V3 won’t show up on V2, and vice-versa. Of course, it’s always possible to revert back to a V2 version of the marketplace to complete any outstanding order you may still have.

More to Come After the V3 Release

The V3 version of Particl will mark a significant step in Particl’s roadmap as it will cross off many of its items. It will also serve as the trigger for many other initiatives to come to life.

New Coins to be Added

Overhaul of the in-App Swap Engine Interface (Particl Desktop V3)

After Particl Desktop 3.0 goes live, more cryptocurrencies will be added to the in-app swap engine. This will be the best time to show the world what Particl has been up to in the last few months and come out with a bang in various cryptocurrency communities.

Encrypted Messaging System

Currently under development by DeMarkets.io, a completely distributed, private, and encrypted messaging system will allow you to communicate with anyone else in the world. Whether that person is a buyer, seller, or just a friend, you’ll be able to exchange secure messages on the Particl network. Thanks to all the developers at DeMarkets.io for the work they’re putting into this decentralized chat system! ❤

Particl Academy

The Particl Academy is going to be Particl’s main informative hub, the interactive user manual. It contains all the basic information and instructions required to use Particl to its full extent. It’s also written in a way that anyone can understand and is meant to make onboarding new users a much easier task.

Vendor Onboarding and Outreach Program

The Vendor Onboarding and Outreach Program (VOP) is a program designed to help make the process of onboarding new sellers easier and help them make their first steps in the world of decentralized eCommerce. It also provides all the tools required for anyone to actively participate in reaching out and getting new sellers to join Particl.

To help and support new sellers, the VOP will provide added benefits and perks to sellers who opt to register to the program. These include the funding of listing fees, the promotion of markets and storefronts, access to VIP channels, personalized support, more exposure within Particl’s community, and many more benefits. It also provides marketing and informational content to the community so that anyone can go out there and find new vendors!

New Community Voting Mechanism

The Partyman cold staking application has recently been updated with some new voting capabilities. This voting system is more private and robust compared to the in-app Proposals system. More details about how to use the voting system and how it will be used to manage the Community Fund will be revealed here on Particl.news soon.

There are still a few weeks separating us from the first Particl Desktop 3.0 release, but it will be well worth the wait! To keep track of the development progress, be sure not to miss any of the Development Updates posted here on Particl.news and, above all, tune into Particl’s AMA session this coming Sunday the 21st of June at 3PM UTC. You’ll be able to hear more information about the coming release coming from Particl Desktop developer Arnold Bansemer! And don’t forget, hit the notification bell to subscribe to the Youtube channel and never miss anything!

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