OpenBazaar, Bitcoin’s answer to Amazon and eBay, launches version 1.0 See all Editor's Picks See all Popular About Jobs The official release marks the first time vendors will be able to use real money on transactions.What started two years ago as a free and “dark” online market meant to be “untouchable” by police has evolved into one of Bitcoin‘s most highly-anticipated and well-funded projects of all time.Today, OpenBazaar officially launched version 1.0, bringing to rest years of speculation about the high-profile venture.OpenBazaar’s debut follows two years of development and beta testing that has produced something markedly different than what began as an effort to build the heir to the famous Dark Net market Silk Road.Instead, what’s launched—a year late—is a slick piece of software with a focus on competing with the likes of Internet commerce giants like eBay, Amazon, and Alibaba.The developers behind OpenBazaar are aiming to build a decentralized marketplace that will be mentioned alongside the Web’s biggest retailers.

The official release marks the first time vendors will be able to use real money on transactions, marking the virtual ribbon-cutting that opens the project to the world.“What’s happened since the Internet has become a dominant way for commerce to be done is that we’ve seen centralized institutions come in and exert their influence through fees and restrictions on what can be traded,” Sam Patterson, OpenBazaar’s operations lead, told the Daily Dot.“OpenBazaar is a way to return to trading with people directly.” OpenBazaar “If you’re thinking about OpenBazaar as Silk Road 3.0, you’re thinking about it much too narrowly,” Patterson said in a 2014 interview when the project launched.“I actually think it’s much more powerful as eCommerce 2.0.” OpenBazaar’s developers successfully translated intense Internet interest into a $1 million investment in 2015 from venture capital firms Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and angel investor William Mougayar.

What OpenBazaar offers that neither Amazon nor Alibaba do is, the project’s proponents promise, the “next generation of uncensored trade.” You can buy or sell anonymously on the decentralized network with no single gatekeeper running the show or monetizing the trades.There’s no one entity to be targeted by law enforcement in countries like the U.S.or China because the network is run by dozens of independent nodes around the world.Security has always been a crucial feature of the project.Encrypted chat and traffic is a central tenant of the software’s anonymity, possibly through the Invisible Internet Project or Tor, remains high on the priority list to be added in the near future.Hundreds of prospective vendors have already contacted the project’s developers, Patterson said.Because of the current capabilities and limitations of OpenBazaar software, Patterson expects digital goods to take off more immediately than physical goods in the new marketplace.As improvements are made to features involving things like inventory control, a wider spectrum of businesses might consider the OpenBazaar option.

“All you have to do is send someone a link and password,” Patterson said, “and you get paid in Bitcoin.” Illustration by Jason Reed Up next after the break: Layer 8digital currencyOpenBazaar founder: We aren’t the next Silk RoadDaniel RobertsEarlier this month, a bitcoin company made waves when it raised a small investment from some big names.Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures invested a total of $1 million in OpenBazaar, an open-source, peer-to-peer marketplace that runs on bitcoin.Sound familiar?buy litecoin mining rigLast month, Ross Ulbricht got a life sentence in prison for operating Silk Road, a peer-to-peer marketplace on which people bought and sold illegal drugs.bitcoin cotizacion hoyBut Brian Hoffman, founder of OpenBazaar and CEO of OB1, says this is different.OpenBazaar was originally created in April 2014 by Amir Taaki at a hackathon in Toronto, and was called Dark Market (a bit more sinister).litecoin price in pounds

Hoffman then "forked" the project on GitHub (making tweaks to the code and suggesting an alternate route), renamed it OpenBazaar, and the original founders walked away.RelatedEthereumTraders Get Burned In Ethereum Flash CrashEthereumTraders Get Burned In Ethereum Flash CrashOpenBazaar is an open-source, non-profit project.But OB1 is a for-profit company that plans to build services on top of OpenBazaar that could turn a profit.He isn't super clear on what those services might be.aml for bitcoinBut while Dark Market very much did associate itself with Silk Road, Hoffman says "things have changed a lot" since the initial release of OpenBazaar.What follows is an edited transcript.Fortune: The funding has brought OpenBazaar into the conversation, really, and it's getting new buzz—not all of it positive.Brian Hoffman: Yeah.bitcoin dubai conference

We had a feeling that would probably happen.Look, obviously investors are not looking to drop money on a Silk Road replacement.We've tried to change the narrative about what we're trying to do.The vision is opening trade for every kind of activity.We're not building a marketplace that specifies one kind of user or trade, we just build the network and it's up to the participants to decide what goes across that network, much like the Internet.bitcoin euro sepaSame goes for bitcoin.faucet bitcoin phpI think some of these new technologies, early on, get adopted by some unsavory groups, because they're the ones that are most willing to be risky about the way they conduct business.Why did the original Dark Market founders walk away, what do you see in it that they don't?Well, you'd have to ask them, but I believe an e-commerce platform that plays nicely and caters to everybody is not really their M.O.Exactly.white bitcoin pill report

I didn't see, like everybody else, 'Oh wow, this is a police-resistant Silk Road.'I know so many people who have little stores they run on eBay, or Etsy, and they're always complaining.And marrying this with bitcoin could really change things: no one taking fees, a lot more privacy and control of their accounts and their reputations.You say using OpenBazaar would give merchants better control over their reputations—but might they also be subject to the reputation of bitcoin?Yeah, obviously our whole business hinges on the idea that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are going to take off to the point where the average user is comfortable using them.bitcoin visa kortI certainly believe that.And by the time we are working well, I think that will come around.But also we hope our platform will be user-friendly enough that it draws people to bitcoin.How long do you expect it to take for bitcoin to be familiar to those who aren't tech-savvy, who aren't early adopters?I think it's several years, to be honest.

I'll be surprised if it comes faster.In one year, bitcoin itself has come a long way.But I still tend to have the same conversations with people—even really smart people, they still say, 'Oh, it's for drugs,' or, 'Maybe I'll ask my dealer for some bitcoin, heh heh.'The narrative still hasn't gotten past that.But I think there is already a vast market we can address of people who do understand and use bitcoin.When you say that people will use this for whatever they choose, well, why wouldn't they choose illegal activity?It would be disingenuous to say I do not think it will be used for that.But it's like me selling up a web page with guns for sale and then saying, 'Look, the Internet is a horrible thing.'If law enforcement wants to step in and shut that down, they would have to go to that person's web site and handle it with them.Same model here: The market is free, so I can decide to sell guns, which is a really dumb idea, but I can do that, and there's really no mechanism for someone to shut it down.

You'd have to go to their hosting provider or ISP or their house and shut down their server.There's no eBay to call and get their listing.It is probably going to become a problem, yes.I think people will try to do those things.And we acknowledge that.But the difference between us and Silk Road is that Silk Road was clearly catering to an audience that primarily focused on that.So you've opened up a marketplace and you fully expect some people to use it for crime.Don't you fear any possibility of arrest?We have lawyers, obviously.There isn't a lot to really worry about because there aren't a lot of rules on this yet.And Silk Road was busted for money laundering—our company doesn't hold anyone's funds, it's all peer to peer.I mean, we're basically just a software developer.And we haven't been approached by any law enforcement.Well, would they really approach you early on to say, 'Hey, what you're building is illegal,' wouldn't they just come and arrest you?Yeah, I mean, a lot of times they build a case over a year or two, and then they come.

But we're proactively engaging lots of parties to educate them on what we're doing.What's your overall take on Silk Road?Do you think what Ulbricht did was wrong, or was it a great idea?I think there are facets of what he was trying to create that very much overlap with what we're doing and what we agree with: opening trade, letting people who run the network to decide what is good and bad for the network.That's a pretty noble stance to take.But in reality, we live in a world where there are laws and rules and as citizens of countries we're expected to follow those rules.And that's where I tend to separate from what they were doing.I do believe that he knew what he was doing and all those guys involved knew what they were doing, and that was where they screwed up.I think that putting someone away for life for a computer crime is not right.I think he probably did deserve to go to jail for what he was doing, but not for life.Sign up for Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter about the business of technology.