Decentralized online marketplace application

Abstract

The traditional online marketplace model has some widely known issues related to data privacy, central power of authority, high commission rates and transaction costs. This creates a need for an alternative trustworthy platform that will help to cut down middlemen softwares and provide decentralized & secure environment. This project aims to make a decentralized marketplace application based on ethereum blockchain. A blockchain based marketplace network will help in directly connecting the buyer with sellers without any intermediaries. This project is aimed to establish a decentralized peer to peer marketplace blockchain application that uses the smart contract technology of ethereum blockchain. A blockchain based marketplace will help to provide more security as all transactions are stored in a public ledger making it less fraudulent. It will help to eradicate the shortcomings of centralized online marketplaces that are discussed below in problem statement. Blockchain has been complemented by InterPlanetary File System(IPFS) that allows to store vital information regarding the products stored. Apart from that, IPFS allows to provide a layer of abstraction while taking out files that are associated with hash of particular products stored in the blockchain. Smart Contracts can help different industries to get rid of the costly middlemen that makes the work flow inefficient and expensive . My application project uses the smart contract technology that tackles this problem and helps to set up an escrow service between the buyer and seller. It is highly beneficial as it removes the risks of fraud by either parties as it is based on smartcontracts that uses the self executing code. The funds from the buyer is held suspended in an escrow service until the whole delivery of the physical object has been validated.