When you enter Shields' website and search for their 'secret project', you get redirected to this page. Read with attention please:

The marketplace

Introducing: ‘The Shield Economy’ - A Decentralized Marketplace Powered by the SHIELD Currency
The SHIELD Economy is a fork of the Openbazaar Marketplace, providing the SHIELD community with an outlet to buy and sell goods or services - all with the speed, anonymity and security that SHIELD currency has to offer. Our development team has been chomping at the bit to announce this exciting milestone on the SHIELD roadmap, and hope the public is just as excited to start using it!

We believe that our new marketplace will allow for a greater usability of SHIELD, while also attracting a wider audience and expanding the global SHIELD community. The SHIELD Economy will also provide established businesses with a more accessible entry point to begin using - and benefiting from - SHIELD as a currency. With our business users in mind, we intend to implement a verification system, allowing businesses to register as ‘official verified users’ on the marketplace to increase user confidence and improve both brand awareness, and integrity for the seller.

What's so secret about an marketplace?

Personally, I do not see the secret here. But I do understand the thought behind it. The purpose of Shield is to be an anonymous currency. Hence probably the secret project. Only a number of questions immediately jump in mind. Because how can you purchase something anonymously at a marketplace? Closing the sale by paying with Shield is anonymous, that seems logical to me. But how do you ensure that the product is sent to you without the seller knowing your address and name and how do you guarantee that? Will you also get a note of your purchase, so that you have a guarantee if something goes wrong? I am very curious about the fact how Shield is going to give that shape.

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Decentralized anonymous marketplace?

Shield mentions in the announcement some type of 'verification system'. Perhaps this is a kind of decentralized anonymous system (marketplace) where both the buyer and the seller enter into some contract. Once the buyer has paid his Shield to this marketplace, the seller receives the order to send the product to the marketplace address. From here it is forwarded again to the customer. As soon as the customer has received his purchase and has indicated to be satisfied, he give his agreement anonymously to the marketplace. At that moment the marketplace releases the paid Shield to the seller. So it is possible to find a solution, but it does result in additional actions. Anyway, you have to do something to remain anonymous.

Pros:

• If you manage this as the Shield platform yourself, you can be sure that anonymity will remain guaranteed.
• The anonymous marketplace has no interest in this trade. They will receive a fee for arranging the sale. The address and name remain anonymous to the seller and the marketplace cannot re-sell this data or use it for marketing purposes.
• By creating a marketplace you have something distinctive and extra value added

Cons:

• It asks extra work from the Shield development team, but they do ensure that their product becomes a bit more unique
• You have to come up with a system that can guarantee that all data remains 100% anonymous

My proposal

Enter into a partnership with Crypto emporium. See previous post from @sanktnico about this marketplace here. Crypto emporium is specialized in selling mainly luxury goods and there can only be paid with crypto. So really a unique marketplace! If Shield is added as payment currency on crypto emporium, this provides:

• More publicity for @shieldcurrency
• More buyers/investors in Shield currency because of anonymity
• New possibilities to buy luxury goods with your shield coins
• The proper regulation of providers on this marketplace is outsourced to crypto emporium. This saves a lot of time in setting up a website, attracting suitable products, warranty conditions, etc.

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Questions?

Do you have any questions after reading this article. Feel free to give your comment/questions below. I will always give a reply.

I will never turn down a beer

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* LTC wallet: LbbhFtVia9mhWQKqE4Q6sgg1w2iW4quCVu * BTC wallet: 51450396-339a-4858-a4f6-b46bf0e69bbe * Shield wallet: Sa1h4DQ3k9dibXEviSL8i2fbAWpAJjyGvT * MEW wallet (Next or other ERC20 tokens) : 0xce47022fD3d79aAd1DE21EDE298dc1785c8528FC

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Thanks for reading!