A Blockchain-based Online Trading Platform: TrustTrade

In addition to general concerns about user privacy and data ownership, the primary security issues for online marketplaces are scam and fraud activities that potentially can violate both buyers and sellers. In this work, we study blockchain implementation in an online marketplace platform: TrustTrade, to overcome these security issues. We mainly investigate how to utilize blockchain’s innovation properties: decentralization, anonymity, and audibility to facilitate a consumer-to-consumer online marketplace to provide a reliable trading ecosystem where people can securely interact, share information, and engage in transactions, yet address other security concerns, including ownership of data and privacy.

I. Introduction

Currently, mainstream online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay are centralized platforms governed and managed by a single entity. They pervasively support consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and business-to-consumer (B2C) sales through their website. For the Norwegian biggest online marketplace Finn.no as an example, it offers advertising options for both private and business. A private user account can post announcements for selling, giving away, or seeking to buy. Any announcement will only be published after being approved by the platform’s control, and it can be on the marketplace for 60 days for free. The seller and buyer can spontaneously negotiate methods of payments, transactions, and shipments. Finn.no offers payment and shipment options that they can use too, and the platform maintains all users’ data.