OpenBazaar is a well known protocol for decentralized ecommerce, built on top of Bitcoin. At an event taking place these days in San Francisco, Brian Hoffman, CEO of OB1, the development company behind the protocol, announced plans for launching a token on top of it. Dubbed "OBT" - but that may not be its final name - the token aims at solving the congestions in the Bitcoin network which clogged the transaction channels for the last 6 months.
The bit that got my attention, though, was how this token will be used. Open Bazaar will not ditch Bitcoin, on the contrary, it will use this new token on a feature called "channels", which can, according to the same person, give you this possibility:
"You will be able to monetize that value to the network through the token"
I confess my knowledge around OpenBazaar is limited, but from what I understand, it seems this move is aimed at the content marketplace. Like having a blog or a newspaper and getting tokens for the content. It's a model experimented already, with various degrees of success, in Yours.org, or in the more recent launch of the μRaiden (microRaiden) network smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.
There seems to be more and more convergence towards a model in which content will have an attached value, that generates income for creators in a more transparent way. That goes in the opposite direction of the current paradigm, in which the audience is sold to advertisers, and the author gets the smallest part of the entire thing. Seems like the content business is heading towards eliminating the "middle man".
In other words, exactly what's happening right now, in Steemit.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):
Amazed to see prototype of Steemit is being followed, this itself proves success of the platform.
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@dragosroua Eliminate the Middle Man and give Back to the People. We don't need the Elite masters involved in our lives anymore............
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Well, while I agree with you, I don't think Elites will give up so easily...
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I never really got into OpenBazaar for the very reason that Bitcoin seemed a bit awkward in a commerce situation, with rising transaction costs and long confirmation times.
On the other hand, I'm a big proponent of seeing an economy developed as part of the Steemit ecosystem... we have had a few attempts: @peerhub, @steemshop and most recently @steembay and I just hope one of these gains traction... we have the benefit of instant transfers and usernames that are meaningful and not just a long string of characters... these are all pluses for ecommerce.
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Yes, STEEM, as a currency, is very well fitted for a specific purpose, as opposed to Bitcoin, which trends towards being just a store of value, like gold.
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I think eliminating the middle men will disrupt the entire industry. Tech giants like Google, whose primary source is advertisements may have to rethink their plans. Interesting future ahead :)
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Looks like there will be competition for SMT's.
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It's not a competitor for SMTs. OpenBazaar is for selling products, not for content creation like Steemit is.
Read more about the token here: https://www.openbazaar.org/blog/openbazaar-tokens-smart-contracts/
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I was refering more to other examples that dragos pointed out. But I still wouldn't buy goods with bitcoin how things are going now
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There is already competition, it just gets more powerful.
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I like your post
nice photography,,,
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informative post my friend keep it up
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@dragosroua, Can you recommend me some good ICO to invest in. I have looked into IndaHash, Crypterium and Bitclave. Bitclave looks really promising but its sale is over now. So, what do you think about the other two. And if there is any other good ongoing and upcoming ICO.
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I don't do this, sorry, I don't give people advice on trading. I think you should make your own due diligence: it's your money, man :)
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What is yours.org? Can we montetize our content there?
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Yes, but it's in a very early stage.
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