Since the beginning of the Internet, online marketplaces have created virtual town squares where buyers and sellers can meet, connect, and ultimately transact. Online marketplaces in the sharing economy have especially thrived in the past few years. Companies like Uber, Airbnb, Getaround, Fiverr, and many others have reached regional and global scale, positively impacting millions of users. Collectively, tens of billions of dollars of transactional value flow through these household names every year.

These companies have undoubtedly changed the world for the better, providing suppliers with new income sources and giving consumers a diverse set of new services with just a few taps on their smartphones (food delivery, on-demand massage, carsharing, ridesharing, homesharing, freelance gigs, etc.).

However, as centralized businesses, there are also several significant shortcomings with these sharing economy marketplaces. They charge heavy transaction fees (typically 20–30%), are susceptible to censorship and regulation, and have failed to reward early buyers and sellers that are responsible for their successes (e.g. the first 100 drivers on Uber or the first 100 hosts on Airbnb).

Today, we are introducing the Origin platform, built on Ethereum and IPFS. Our vision is to enable the sharing economy of tomorrow, one that is fully decentralized and free of onerous transaction fees, is censorship-resistant, and rewards network participants for contributing to the platform.

Origin empowers developers and businesses to build decentralized marketplaces on the blockchain. Our protocols make it easy to create and manage listings for the fractional usage of assets and services. Buyers and sellers can discover each other, browse listings, make bookings, leave ratings and reviews, and much more.

We envision a future where open-source code can replace multi-million (and billion) dollar businesses. Smart contracts will become the new virtual town square where buyers and sellers can meet, connect, and transact. We are excited about the decentralized sharing economy and hope you are as well.

Matt and Josh

Founders of Origin

Learn more about Origin: