Openbazaar Co-Founder Expresses Frustration Over BTC Fees

The co-founder of Openbazaar, Washington Sanchez, has taken to Twitter to vent frustration with the high fees associated with BTC. Mr. Sanchez expressed regret for his previous BTC “maximalism,” and reinforced Openbazaar’s desire to place a greater emphasis on alternative cryptocurrencies.

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Washington Sanchez Slams BTC Fees

Since 2014, Openbazaar has primarily facilitated payments on its platform in the form of bitcoin. In recent days, the company’s co-founder has expressed frustration with the fees associated with BTC payments, and the process and outcome of the scaling debate surrounding bitcoin.

“I personally wasted so much time in the bitcoin scaling civil war that I could have used designing/building dapps and opening up Openbazaar to multiple currencies. Instead, we had to wait for fees [in BTC] to cripple any consumer usage before we woke up,” Mr. Sanchez posted.

“The core lesson was to not let personal ideology interfere with designing what is best for open competition and experimentation within the marketplace,” he added.

”Openbazaar is supposed to be a free and open protocol for trade using cryptocurrency, a way for currencies and tokens to gain meaningful economic utility to acquire goods and services, and an entry point for people to earn/onboard. This vision cannot be limited to a single coin,” he concluded.

Openbazaar to Introduce Suite of Altcoins

Openbazaar has announced that it will move to support a wide range of altcoins, with Mr. Sanchez tweeting that “With any luck, by the end of the year, [Openbazaar] will look radically different,” with the platform hoping to support users’ ability to “purchase/sell goods or services for BTC, BCH, LTC, ZEC, ETH,” in addition to “any ERC20 token.”

Despite the company’s desire to emphasize alternative payment methods, BTC still remains the most popular cryptocurrency on Openbazaar – with approximately 11,000 listings offering BTC as a means of payment. The second most popular currency is Bitcoin Cash with roughly 1,100 listings for BCH currently hosted on Openbazaar.

Do you agree with Mr. Sanchez’s assessment that high BTC fees have hurt adoption? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Openbazaar

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