Where we've been:
Amazon is 22 years old, eBay is 21. The online services we use are increasingly demanding more of our personal data, a disturbing trend. Corporate entities such as Google and Facebook have grown to extraordinary sizes solely by monetizing on user data. These entities are charged with keeping said data secure and, in the case of social and economic interactions, safeguarding the privacy. This approach of centralized security models is not applicable to the new generation of technologies such as Bitcoin.

Where we're going:
Satoshi Nakamoto had initially created a marketplace which was included in the official Bitcoin codebase but was stripped out later on. The concept of a decentralized marketplace in itself is not novel, there have been a small set of academic constructions and even serious attempts at creating them. (OpenBazaar, BitMarkets, Beaver, DropZone) They either propose solutions that scale extremely well and neglect the privacy implications, or they propose very privacy conscious solutions that do not scale well. Privacy and efficiency are often at odds with each other.

"to hide the signal you must generate noise". -Ido Kaiser

Tor exemplifies this well, the traffic is pushed through various nodes with several layers of encryption before arriving at its destination, it is deliberately inefficient but the privacy provided by the trade off is well worth it. And then there's governance and how do you attach a self-governance mechanism on a decentralized network? The issue of governance on decentralized models is already starting to become a hot button for blockchain platforms.

How we get there:
Particl is an open source, decentralized privacy platform built for global person to person eCommerce. The native marketplace, currency tokens and suite of encrypted communication tools offer unfettered access between buyers and sellers worldwide or just down the street.

You can buy or sell anything, similar to eBay, Etsy or Amazon, except that all the transaction data, payments and conversations happen over a self-governed, distributed network instead of a central server. Think of it as going to a local market to buy something you need, from the person who is actually selling it, without a third person's permission, "service" or fee required for the sale to happen.

PART is the native 2-token currency in Particl. Users have a choice when sending money on the distributed ledger. Pseudo-anonymous transactions use a public token and truly-anonymous transactions use a private token.

Particl will be currency agnostic, meaning it will support the use of many cryptocurrencies with the intent of being an inclusive platform. A decentralized privacy platform focused on free markets cannot be limited by its own built-in token system. Our goal is to lower barriers of entry and reduce friction in online shopping, allowing for easier adoption by buyers and vendors anywhere in the world.

The very nature of a free-market built on a distributed network immediately brings up the question of governance. To get right to the point, Particl is being built with protection to ensure the market does not become an ultimate version of silk road. Our main focus is researching self-governance models that can be adapted to a decentralized network. The self-governance model for Particl will have two components to it:

• Platform Governance. Protection against illegal goods. "How do we protect the platform?"
• Privacy Governance. Providing user privacy. "How do we protect the users?"

Who's on the team?
Particl core developers

• Ryno Mathee - Lead & Core Developer ([email protected]) (rynomster)
• Gerlof van Ek - Developer, Branding & Graphics, UI/UX ([email protected]) (crz)
• Ido Kaiser - Developer & Software Architect (kewde)
• Tecnovert - Core Developer, Cryptographic Researcher
• Shazzy - Research & Development ([email protected]) (dasource)

Particl non-developer core

• Paul Schmitzer - Communications ([email protected]) (litebit)
• Henk Swardt - Project Manager, PMP ([email protected])
• Nick Sy - Treasurer ([email protected])

Extended Team:

• Arcanum - PR / Writing
• FFmad - General Relations
• Edu - Community Manager
• Allien - Front-end Developer
• Ludx - Developer

Advisors:

• Micah Spruill - Business & Finance - Managing Partner, Aurora Investment Advisors ([email protected])
• Yann Alleman - Business & PR, - Engineer, Ferrari A.G. ([email protected])
• Joe Fisher - E-Commerce Strategy - Private label online seller, Product Developer ([email protected])

What technology is Particl built with?
Particl is based on the latest and market-leading Bitcoin codebase. We are currently adding the privacy functionality from ShadowCash onto the Bitcoin Core 13.2 codebase but with .14 released in March it is highly likely that by the time we create the Particl genesis block we will be on Bitcoin Core .14 codebase.

Will there be a token exchange for PART?
A seed round is scheduled to start March 18th, 2017 and last 4 weeks. During this time existing ShadowCash token holders can exchange SDC for PART.

To participate in the Particl token exchange, you must have ShadowCash (SDC) tokens.
Please visit https://particl.io for investment inquiries and information.

Useful links:
Website: https://particl.io
Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/particl
Blog: https://particl.news
Twitter: https://twitter.com/particlproject
Slack: https://particl.slack.com | Slack invite: http://slack.particl.io
Riot: https://riot.im/app/#/room/#particl:matrix.org
IRC: #particl
Github: https://github.com/particl

Contact us:
General queries: [email protected]