GajuMarket: the world’s first on-chain marketplace
for goods and services
In our 2025 Year in Review & 2026 Prospectives, we outlined several products that have been in production throughout 2025, many of which are going live this year. First of these many launches would be GajuMarket, the world’s first on-chain marketplace for goods and services.
We showcased a very rough and ready version of this in November last year.
It is, in fact, a world’s first–because “blockchain marketplaces” that launched prior to GajuMarket were “decentralized in name only (DINO).”
Why On-Chain Marketplace Imitators (or DINO) Failed
OpenBazaar raised $9.25 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, and Digital Currency Group to build exactly this—a peer-to-peer marketplace without intermediaries. They processed $44 million in total GMV over five years, then shut down in January 2021.
But here’s what nobody talks about: OpenBazaar was never actually on a blockchain.
OpenBazaar used IPFS, a peer-to-peer file-sharing system like BitTorrent, for storing listings and marketplace data. Bitcoin was used only for payment. The marketplace itself never touched a blockchain.
It does not use an underlying blockchain–it functions more like BitTorrent than Ethereum.
This architecture created fundamental problems:
- Third-party trust required. Every secure transaction needed a “moderator”—a third party holding one of three keys. The buyer and seller had to agree on this moderator before transacting. If you didn’t trust the same people, no sale. Collusion between seller and moderator could result in stolen funds.
- Double Bitcoin fees. Multisig escrow required two on-chain transactions. During Bitcoin fee spikes in 2017-2018, a $10 purchase incurred $10+ in network fees.
- 45-day fund lockup. Money could remain stuck in escrow for up to 45 days before timeout.
- Centralised infrastructure dependency. OB1, the company behind OpenBazaar, ran centralised search engines, seed nodes, and API servers. When they shut these down in January 2021, OpenBazaar died, proving the “decentralised” network depended entirely on centralised infrastructure.
- No revenue model. Zero fees. Relied on donations. Burned through VC money with no sustainability and no plan to get there other than more VC money to fund a business plan development after the fact.
- Sellers had to stay online. Listings disappeared when your computer turned off—because IPFS only persists data if someone hosts it. Academic research from Carnegie Mellon found listings “being all delisted on the same day, presumably because the vendor node had been offline for long enough to have its listings cleared from the IPFS cache.”
- Bitcoin-only, no stablecoins. Price volatility made commerce impractical.
- Rampant fraud. Pseudonymous accounts enabled sock-puppet reputation gaming. No enforcement mechanism when sellers took payment and vanished.
Others failed the same way
Origin Protocol raised $31.5 million using the same IPFS + Ethereum hybrid, then pivoted entirely to DeFi yield products, abandoning marketplaces. Their 2024 year-in-review focuses exclusively on “DeFi yield” and “TVL”, not marketplace transactions. Particl deliberately stores marketplace data off-chain “to avoid bloating the blockchain” and has approximately 80 daily active users.
Every project that claimed to build a “blockchain marketplace” used blockchain only for payments and stored marketplace data elsewhere.
GajuMarket is the first to put the entire marketplace on-chain.
OpenBazaar proved the concept had appeal. It also proved that calling something a “blockchain marketplace” while storing marketplace data on a file-sharing network doesn’t work. It proved execution matters.
GajuMarket addresses every one of these failures.
GajuMarket is architecturally different.
The listing is a smart contract on the Gajumaru blockchain. Negotiation happens through contract calls. The contract holds the funds, no third-party moderator. Settlement is immediate upon acceptance. When OB1 shut down, OpenBazaar died. If QPQ disappeared tomorrow, GajuMarket’s contracts would continue executing on the Gajumaru blockchain.
Why the architecture matters in practice:
Persistence: OpenBazaar listings disappeared when sellers went offline. GajuMarket listings persist on-chain regardless of seller availability. The blockchain doesn’t forget.
Finality: OpenBazaar transactions could remain in limbo for 45 days. GajuMarket settles in seconds; finality within minutes. When the contract executes, the transaction is complete.
Censorship resistance: When OB1 filtered their search results, they controlled the marketplace. GajuMarket listings are on-chain—anyone can index them, anyone can build interfaces. The contracts exist independently of any single operator.
This is why saying that GajuMarket is the world’s first on-chain marketplace for goods and services is a fact, not a marketing stunt.
What GajuMarket Does Differently
GajuMarket charges fees.
0.5% to 2% of transaction value. This isn’t greed, it’s sustainability. In order to keep things running, we need to keep the lights on.
eBay charges 12-15%. Amazon charges 8-15%. Etsy charges 10-12%. Ricardo.ch charges 9%. GajuMarket charges less than a tenth of what incumbents charge, and uses it to fund actual operations. GajuMarkets AG, a new wholly-owned Swiss subsidiary, will operate the marketplace.
Web portal via GRIDS.
No software download. Open a browser, scan a QR code with your Gajumaru wallet, and you’re logged in. No username. No password. No account creation. The wallet signs a random message to prove your identity. Fast, secure, passwordless. Any device with a browser becomes your shop.
Listings persist on-chain.
Your computer can be off. Your phone can be dead. Your listing is stored on the Gajumaru blockchain and remains visible. The sale contract exists independent of whether you’re online.
Smart contract negotiation.
This is the architectural difference that matters. When a buyer bids, funds move from their wallet into an on-chain sale contract, not to us, not to an escrow service, into the contract itself. Buyer and seller can negotiate terms directly: adjust price, change shipping method, modify delivery terms. Every change is enforced by the contract.
When both parties agree, the seller accepts and gets paid.
GajuMarket does not hold the money. It does not arbitrate disputes. It doesn’t control the transaction.
The contract between buyer and seller governs everything. GajuMarket only provides the infrastructure to create and execute that contract. That’s facilitation, not intermediation.
Stablecoin integration expected from June 2026.
Dual currency support. List in Gajus if you want Gaju exposure or, as the currency stabilises in relative value, prefer the certainty of real money that really works. List in stablecoins if you want fiat price certainty. Buyers can pay in either. The mispricing opportunity, goods listed at early Gaju prices that appreciate, drives adoption, but stability is available for those who need it.
The Evolution Path
Stage 1: Soft Launch (mid-January 2026 onwards)
Open access, early stage. We expect bugs, and we want feedback.
The core flow works: list an item, receive bids, negotiate terms, complete sale, get paid. Moderation reviews listings before they go live, we’re not building Silk Road 2.0!
Initial categories
Crafts, books, collectibles, digital goods, services. Low-risk items where shipping complexity is minimal and trust requirements are manageable. Think eBay 1996, not Amazon 2024. At the early stage, it is expected that most listings of goods or services will be fulfilled locally unless they are digital goods. In simple terms, GajuMarket starts as a global marketplace for global digital goods and services and a global marketplace for local real-world goods and services.
This is the basis for the first year or more until logistics providers are integrated and that can form part of the trust chain. With such partners, terms can be provided such as Cost, Insurance, and Freight (CIF), Free on Board (FOB) as standard.
Digital services are global from day one
A developer in Warsaw can sell to a buyer in Singapore immediately, no shipping required. The global freelance market exceeds $4 billion annually. Fiverr charges 20%. Upwork charges 20%. Gumroad charges 10%.
GajuMarket charges less than 2%.
The entire freelance economy is addressable at launch with a 95% fee advantage – which also feeds into another product line, Giggerlicious. More information on that later.
The tradeoff at this stage is the marketplace is Gaju only. Buyers who don’t mine can purchase Gajus from the GajuDEX (also coming soon) or from an OTC desk run by QPQ Capital AG or indeed any other licensed broker.
Stage 2: Stablecoin Integration (expected from June 2026)
At the moment, there is no stablecoin support on GajuMarket, but this is definitely in the pipeline. Integrating stablecoins into GajuMarket would make external participation from non-Gaju holders possible.
The marketplace opens beyond the mining community and those who buy Gajus through the GajuDEX or intermediated services. This integration would significantly expand GajuMarket’s user base, enabling the growth and consolidation of a Gaju-based economy, and propelling the Gaju’s primary purpose as a currency as liquid as cash.
Stage 3: Logistics Integration (2027)
The hard problem in physical goods e-commerce isn’t payments, it’s shipping. How do you get a package from El Salvador to Australia? How much does it cost? How long does it take? Who’s liable if it doesn’t arrive?
The plan with GajuMarket is to integrate logistics providers directly into the negotiation flow. Seller lists an item; buyer in another country wants it; logistics providers bid on the shipment. The buyer sees real shipping options with real prices. Terms like CIF and FOB become standard contract options, not arcane trade terminology.
This transforms GajuMarket from “global marketplace for local goods” to “global marketplace for global goods.” The infrastructure to move physical items across borders, priced and tracked on-chain, with smart contracts governing delivery verification.
Stage 4: High-Value Categories
Vehicles. Real estate. Business equipment. Categories where listing fees make sense because image processing, verification, and discovery requirements are more demanding.
A car listing needs multiple high-resolution photos, VIN verification, condition documentation. A property listing needs legal description, title verification, regulatory compliance. These aren’t the same as listing a T-shirt. The fee structure will reflect the different service levels.
Why This Matters
Consider what happens when you buy something on eBay today:
You find an item, you pay eBay; eBay takes 12-15%; eBay holds your money; eBay releases it to the seller after some delay.
If there’s a dispute, eBay decides who wins. eBay can freeze your account, reverse your transaction, change the rules. You’re not trading with the seller, you’re trading with eBay, and eBay happens to pass some of it along to the seller.
That’s intermediation. The platform sits between you, controls the transaction, extracts value, and exercises authority over both parties.
Now consider GajuMarket.
You find an item. You bid, and your funds move into a sale contract on the blockchain. You negotiate terms directly with the seller: price, shipping, delivery method, everything, with prompts and easy language suggestions to ensure completeness.
When both the seller and the buyer agree, the contract executes. The seller gets paid from the contract.
GajuMarket never touched your money. It never held the keys. It merely provided the infrastructure to create the contract and the marketplace to find the seller. That’s it.
If there’s a dispute, it’s between you and the seller, governed by whatever terms you agreed in the contract. There is no judge. There’s not even a party to the transaction. GajuMarket only facilitated its creation.
This distinction, facilitation versus intermediation, is not semantic. It’s architectural. It determines who has power, who bears risk, who extracts value. In intermediated systems, the platform has all three. In GajuMarket, the parties to the transaction do.
GajuMarket does not intermediate. It facilitates.
The yard sale is just about to go truly global
and digital assets finally have a home.
For those interested in joining the community, protected mining remains open until 29 March 2027. During this stage, the Gajumaru network can be mined using modest, standard computers, allowing regular people to mine Gajus with minimum difficulty before mining opens to the public in 2027.