Will OpenBazaar succeed where Silk Road failed? A new company looks to erase the limits on what can be bought and sold online.

• Author: Malone, Sean W.
• Position: Reason TV

OpenBazaar--a blockchain-based, fully decentralized online market-makes it possible to sell anything to anyone, anywhere in the word, for free.

We know what you're probably thinking: Hasn't that been tried before, and didn't it land Ross Ulbricht in prison for life without the possibility of parole? But the team at OB1, the company that's developing the OpenBazaar network, is quick to point out that their product doesn't have the vulnerabilities of Silk Road, the online marketplace Ulbricht ran that got him busted for money laundering and conspiracy to traffic drugs.

For one thing, OpenBazaar is not a website--it's a peer-to-peer network that runs on open-source software that users download and install on their computers, similar to a BitTorrent client. The software connects people to a network where they can trade with other users without a middleman taking a cut.

Unlike Silk Road and eBay, OB1 doesn't maintain servers, host product listings, or store transaction data. Because of that structure, the company has no control over what is bought and sold. Whereas the online craft market Etsy forbids the sale of Washington Redskins-branded merchandise, for example, and Walmart restricts the sale of music bearing a "parental advisory" label, OpenBazaar puts absolutely no limits on what can be listed. And since the source code is publicly available, it would be virtually impossible for a governmental entity to shut the platform down.

"We're merely providing a software tool to the masses, and each user is deciding what they do, how they participate on the network," explains OB1's 33-year-old CEO, Brian Hoffman. "So just as someone can write something derogatory in a Microsoft Word document, Microsoft is not liable for that."

It's this aspect of the system--the direct interaction between individual users, free from political oversight--that worries critics. Won't OpenBazaar become simply a means for buying narcotics and other contraband?

In fact, OB1 has its sights set on something far...