Cryptos Who Are Building a Marketplace
Cryptocurrency marketplace refers to the built-in ability to let people exchange tokens with real-world products and services within a protocol, directly with each other without the need for a third party.
Traditional e-commerce marketplaces involve a user buying real-world products and services through a third-party like eBay and Amazon, which is associated with an increase of fees. For instance, purchasing and payment processing at eBay costs users 10 to 15 percent in fees. Cryptocurrency marketplaces let users purchase goods and services at very low fees due to the removal of third party roles in the facilitating transactions.
Using traditional bankers also leads to increased fees.
Cryptocurrency marketplaces come with many other advantages such as letting users purchase with digital cryptocurrencies in addition to FIAT (most banks and third-party e-commerce platforms allow only FIAT dealings).
They come with the ability for additional privacy and security for financial transactions. Also, 2.5 billion "unbanked" people worldwide cannot use e-commerce websites because those websites require the use of credit cards and bank accounts to buy products and services online and crypto marketplaces could be revolutionary towards that.
Cryptocurrency markets can basically be divided into three categories: decentralized marketplaces that are built on the blockchain, peer-to-peer non-blockchain-based marketplaces and centralized crypto marketplaces that operate over the website.
Decentralized marketplaces built on the blockchain
In addition to offering peer-to-peer exchanges and trading, these marketplaces bring to the user, all the benefits of the cryptography including added privacy, sending funds almost instantly, and instant conversion from one cryptocurrency to another within the platform.
OpenBazaar
An example of such marketplaces is the tried-and-tested OpenBazaar, a Mac, Windows and Linux software that has a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency marketplace that already allows users to list items and purchase items with more than 50 cryptocurrencies in more than 30 countries world-wide.
The idea started as a project called "Dark Market" in April 2014 in Toronto although trading begun April 2016 with tens of thousands trading with cryptocurrencies on OpenBazaar 1.0.
The decentralized platform charges no transaction or monthly or listing fees, you do not require a bank account and you can customize your store.
Users can list almost every type of item including clothes, jewelry, art, music, games, videos, handmade goods, as welll as foods and beverages. It has many marketplace applications that and lending.
Syscoin
Syscoin, which was launched in 2014, has a marketplace available in the wallet but has been working on an an improved Blockmarket decentralised marketplace that will be accessible through a desktop and a web application.
User experiences, according to reports, will occur in 1/100th of the time compared to current experiences in the coin's marketplace. Once the improved marketplace is finalized, the marketplace on the syscoin QT wallet will be removed.
The new marketplace will allow free virtual web stores, selling and reselling of products, messaging and use of escrows among other things.
The coin's marketplace already uses TOR and ZCash (ZEC) based anonymity features and so be better than OpenBazaar that uses only the TOR network that does not guarantee complete anonymity.
OmniBazaar
OmniBazaar entered beta just this May. this blockchain based marketplace will allow users to buy products and services using Bitcoin and OmniCoin (the platform's digital currency) through a distributed structure to eliminate the middlemen and bankers. Users can also list products and services in the marketplace and accomplish live transactions.
The platform will charge 80% lower fees compared to e-commerce websites like eBay and Amazon.
Users will be able to purchase products and services with OmniBazaar software using their computer, smartphones and tablets without bank accounts, credit cards, application forms, or credit checks.
They will pay only 1% of fees.
Particl
Another blockchain-based marketplace is Particl, which launched on July this year. The open source, decentralized privacy platform built on Bitcoin platform will facilitate person-to-business eCommerce.
It will let users buy anything from other people globally, through eBay, Etsy or Amazon but with the transaction data, payments and conversations happening over a self-governed, distributed network instead of a central server. There will be no third party.
It will connect buyers and sellers worldwide and the Cryptography and Confidential Transactions will also allow two parties in the dealing to interact with anonymity.
The alpha testing of the Particl marketplace is going on. You can also earn via mining with Proof of Stake. Rewards from the network will increase with increase in marketplace value and popularity of the platform.
Divi
Divi, whose crowdsale just began, is a multi-level masternode Proof of Work blockchain project that will also have a decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace that encourages, in addition to other features, mass adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Users will be able to list items with basic description and photos, a link to the product for instance on their websites, or their email addresses so that buyers can easily find the things on sale for DIVI. The marketplace will have a direct checkout system to allow for payment of products. Users will be able to search and use DIVI currency to buy products by a map to find products being sold near them or far away, for instance in their countries. The system will list and help e-commerce vendors to find a good source of income for their products and services.
Merchants will also be able to accept DIVI as a payment method for the products they sell online, and this will be possible because Divi coders will create embedded buttons and plugins. There will also be a world wide web version of the marketplace so that the products listed will appear in search engines. Divi project will also have a sales team that will be responsible for finding talent to make great stuff, and a team of designers to make great stuff. It will charge a small fees.
Coinmatic
Coinmatic wallet is also planning an in-built marketplace that allows the community to list, order and sell products and services from thousands of merchants across the world at affordable and discounted rates directly from the wallet, using Bitcoin and any other altcoin.
The ICO ended in June and the company is currently testing the e-shop marketplace in beta (invitation-only) as well as doing partnerships with marketing companies. The web wallet, dual e-shop with CTIC3 (platform currency) and instant conversion of CTIC3 to Bitcoin, Android coinmatic app, and merchandising features will be released early next year.
Lordmancer II
Lordmancer II, which is a multiplayer online RPG game that runs on Android and iOS devices, is planning to add blockchain-based marketplace to make itself more useful by encouraging users to “farm” rare and valuable weapons and artifacts and sell to other players and earn money.
Lordmancer II marketplace will allow blockchain-based peer-to-peer token transfers and game content trades using the Lord Coin (LC) token. Users will be able to purchase LC for fiat currencies at a cryptocurrency exchange in and out of the game and enter the game market, and can take LC out of the game and sell it for a cryptocurrency (for instance LC will be sold for BTC or ETH at a crypto exchange).
Lordmancer's crowdsale or ICO opens on November 7 and it will be a good platform for game developers to monetize and earn from their talents and efforts.
Users will also be able to mine the coin and spend their income in and out of the game.
Soma
With the rise of rise of sales of counterfeit goods expected to reach $2.3 trillion by 2022, almost a 25% increase from 2015, Soma, which means social market, is a blockchain marketplace platform that hopes to address fraudulent sellers and dealings as realized on classifieds platforms such as Ebay, Amazon and Alibaba.
It will facilitate trading within the Soma Community. Every physical item on the blockchain is represented digitally on the blockchain by an Interactive Item Card (IIC). The IIC stores item ownership data, the condition of the physical item, the genuineness of the item and the price history.
The product's digital representation can add and accumulate value based on the different social interractions within the community and that value will affect pricing. In other words, that value could be a form of trust for the commodities being sold. Increase in value of commodities will lead to increase in value of Soma.
The smart contract could be used in transactions as an alternative to tedious receipts and certifications of authenticity.
CanYa
CanYa, whose ICO is ongoing currently, is a decentralized block-based marketplace for peer-to-peer trade and services that features own cryptocurrency and users can still pay using traditional bank accounts and credit cards. The wallet can be loaded with crypto is linked to a credit card.
The system facilitates retailing of skills and talents such as by freelancers (artists, developers and programmers among others) all around the world. the network has more than 200 different ways to spend and earn cryptocurrencies. You get paid on a trusless system. Service providers pay 1% flat transaction fee and can choose to pay subscriptions to become “Featured Providers.”
Shopin
Shopin aims at using blockchain to change the way we do shopping in the retail economy. Simply put, it uses blockchain to connect and reconnect shoppers and retailers with all the benefits of token or cryptocurrency economy and blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and mobile technology.
Retailers will leveraging AI to increase sales and get referrals or sale recommendations while users, including buyers, get crypto incentives and low priced goods as the costs of transactions and goods reduce by way of retailers taking advantage of blockchain. The blockchain will combine value, purchase and data and will facilitate a million transactions per second so that retailers can have Amazon-like experiences with recommendations powered by A.I.It will have KYC and AML.
The company already raised $41,003,370. They had a private presale, then a public presale and now a public sale or ICO which started this March and each token is selling at . They will also launch mobile apps (Android and iOS) in May.
Shopin just tested their platform through two retail pilot programs. They collaborated with fashion and home-goods retailers and these retailers invited their customers to create a profile on Shopin. They got about 700,000 signups and used the preference and purchse data to curate recommendations. This led to a 22 percent increase in conversions and additional $14.7 million worth of sales. It currently have more than 72,000 users who are loyal customers to different retailers, following this pilot program.
Shopin was the Winner of Best ICO at the North American Bitcoin Conference and the Winner of Best ICO at the CoinAgenda Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency investing conference.
