How trading here works

Escrow, the countdown, what the figures under a trader's name mean, and what happens when a trade goes wrong.

The mechanics

Where is the money while a trade is running?

A trade has two halves and they move in completely different ways. Almost every problem on this platform comes from not knowing which half is which.

The crypto — we hold it

The moment a trade opens, the seller's coins leave their wallet and move into escrow held by this platform. Not flagged, not reserved — moved. The seller cannot spend them, cannot sell them to somebody else, and cannot pull them back out.

The cash — we never touch it

The buyer's payment goes bank to bank, directly. It never passes through this platform. We cannot see it arrive, cannot hold it, and cannot pull it back if it turns out to be bad.

Both rails run between the same two people, and they run in opposite directions. We can stop the top one; we are not even on the bottom one.

That imbalance is the whole design

We can guarantee one side of the trade and not the other, so the entire thing turns on one moment: a seller looking at their own bank and deciding the money is really there. Every rule further down this page is a consequence of that single sentence.

Escrow has exactly three exits

The seller releases
The coins land in the buyer's wallet immediately. Nobody can reverse it — not the seller, not support, not a bank.
The window closes
If the buyer never confirms a payment in time, the trade cancels itself and the coins go straight back to the seller.
Somebody disputes
Escrow freezes. Neither side can move it, in either direction, until a person on our team has read the whole trade.

There is no fourth exit. No one at this platform can quietly move escrow somewhere else, and nothing said in the chat can either — which is why “release it and I'll sort it out with you after” is always a bad trade.

What you will see while it is held

287.6742 USDTheld in escrowexample

This sits at the top of every running trade. While it is there, those coins are out of the seller's reach and waiting on one of the three exits above. If it is not there, the trade is over.

The mechanics

What is the countdown, and what happens when it hits zero?

There is one clock on a trade and it is always the buyer's. It is counting one thing: how long the buyer has to send the money and say so. Its length comes from the offer — commonly fifteen minutes to an hour — and you can see it before you commit to anything.

The bar is the only clock on the trade and it belongs to the buyer. Its length is whatever the offer set — that is why it is drawn without markings. After it, one branch ends and the other simply keeps running with nothing counting down.

The three things it says

Time left
24:18
Normal. Nothing is wrong and nothing needs doing beyond making the transfer.
Running out
04:02
Under a fifth of the window is left. If your bank is slow, say so in the chat now rather than at zero.
Window closed
00:00
The window expired. The buyer can no longer confirm payment on this trade.

At zero, if nobody confirmed a payment: The trade cancels itself and the escrow goes back to the seller. Nothing else happens — no charge, no penalty beyond the cancellation showing up in both records.
Confirming stops the clock for good: The moment the buyer presses the confirm button, the countdown is finished and irrelevant. Nothing restarts it.
There is no clock on the seller: Once payment is confirmed, what you see is how long it has been since — elapsed time, not a countdown. We do not release escrow automatically, and we would rather show you a real number than a countdown to a consequence we do not actually enforce. If a seller sits on it, the answer is the chat and then a dispute.

If you paid and the window closed before you confirmed, do not pay again

Your money is not gone. It is sitting in the seller's account unmatched to any trade, and a dispute is how it gets matched. Open one from the trade, attach your bank's reference, and send nothing else in the meantime — a second transfer is a second thing to argue about.

The mechanics

What do the numbers under someone's name actually tell you?

Nobody here gets a star rating on the screens where it would matter. Every counterparty carries one line of measured facts instead — things this platform counted, not things anyone said about them.

What it looks like on an offer

Example sellerVerified

1,284 trades99.8%~2 min release

Reading the line

1,284 trades99.8%~2 min release

1,284 trades: Trades that reached an end, whichever end. It is the denominator for everything beside it. A big number is not by itself good — it is what makes the two figures next to it mean something.
99.8%: The share of those that completed rather than being cancelled or left to expire. Read it against the count: 99.8% of 1,284 is a record, and 100% of 3 is three trades.
~2 min release: The middle of how long this person takes to release escrow once payment is confirmed. Stored as 128 seconds and printed as ~2 min — the tilde is doing real work, because this is the median of what they have done before, not a promise about today.

Release time beats a score

A five-star seller who takes forty minutes to release is a worse trade than a four-star seller who takes fifty seconds, and a row of stars cannot tell you that. Release time is the number that costs you something when you get it wrong, which is why it is on the line and a rating is not.

When there is nothing to measure

New trader — no completed trades yet

An account with nothing finished shows this instead of a percentage. It is not an accusation — it is an absence of evidence, and everybody starts here. The obvious alternative is to show a fresh account as 100%, and we do not, because that hands a throwaway account a perfect record on its first day.

Trading with a new account is fine. Trade small the first time, keep every message on the platform, and let the record build.

You can sort and filter on these figures on the market — including browsing by trader rather than by offer, if it is a person you are choosing rather than a price.

Your side

You are buying — what is on you?

You are sending money into the world where we cannot follow it, and collecting coins we are already holding for you. Your whole job is to make your payment easy to recognise.

Never say you have paid before the money has left your account

It is the most common way people lose a dispute. The moment you confirm, the seller goes and looks at their bank — and if there is nothing there, you have spent the only credibility you had and the clock you were working against is finished.

Pay from an account in your own name: If the name on the transfer is not your name here, the seller has no way to tie the money to you, and a careful seller will not release. Plenty of banks flag it as well.
Use the reference they give you: Payment details usually come with one. Without it your money can sit unmatched in their account for days while the two of you argue about whether it arrived at all.
Keep your own bank's reference number: Not the trade number — the reference your bank or app put on the transfer itself. You will be asked for it when you confirm, and it is the single most useful thing you can hand a dispute.
Attach the receipt even though it is optional: On its own a screenshot proves nothing, and a good seller knows that. Next to a real bank reference it ends most arguments before they start.
If they do not release, ask before you escalate: People are asleep, at work, or looking at the wrong account. Say something in the trade chat first. If it drags on and they stop replying, open a dispute — and do not send anything more in the meantime.

Everything you have running, and what each one is waiting on, is on my trades.

Your side

You are selling — what is on you?

Your coins are already locked away where the buyer can see them, which is why they are willing to pay a stranger first. In exchange you carry the one decision this platform cannot make for you.

Check your own bank, not this screen. Releasing is final.

We cannot see your account. When the buyer confirms, the only thing we know is that they pressed a button. Your bank is the only thing that can tell you the money is really there — and once you release, nobody, including us, can bring the coins back.

A screenshot is not money: Edited receipts and spoofed bank texts are ordinary tools, not exotic ones. So are entirely genuine screenshots of transfers that were cancelled a minute later.
The sender's name has to match: Money from somebody else's account is the classic setup. It is often stolen, and when the real owner reports it the bank takes it back — days after you released. If the name does not match, do not release; say why in the chat.
The amount has to match exactly: A short payment is not payment. Neither is an overpayment you are then asked to refund by some other route — that is a laundering pattern, not a clumsy mistake.
Know which payment methods can be pulled back: Card payments and some wallet transfers can be reversed by the sender's bank long after they look settled. If your offer accepts them, you are taking that risk on purpose — price it in or do not accept them.
You are never obliged to release on a promise: Waiting costs you time. Releasing against a promise costs you the coins. If it has not arrived, say so plainly in the chat and open a dispute rather than releasing to keep the peace.

Selling starts with an offer — your price, your payment methods, your limits, and how long a buyer gets to pay. Post an offer.

When it goes wrong

How do people actually get scammed here?

Four patterns account for nearly everything that goes wrong here. None of them requires the other person to be clever — they work because they arrive at the moment you want to believe them.

The third-party transfer

What it looks like: The money arrives and the amount is right, but the sender is somebody else. There is always a reason: my brother sent it, it went out of the business account, my card is with my wife.
Why it works on sensible people: You are looking at a credit for the right amount, so you release. Weeks later the transfer is reversed as stolen funds, and by then there is no counterparty and no coins.

Name on the transfer, name on the trade. Same name, or no release.

The edited receipt

What it looks like: A screenshot of a completed transfer. A bank text message. An email that looks close enough to your bank's. Sometimes a genuine screenshot of a transfer that was cancelled straight after.
Why it works on sensible people: It arrives at the exact moment you are hoping to see it, and believing it takes two seconds while checking takes two minutes.

Open your own banking app. Nothing that reaches you through this platform can tell you money arrived.

Let us finish this on WhatsApp

What it looks like: A friendly nudge onto Telegram, WhatsApp or email. Often with a better rate attached, or a claim that the chat here is broken, or an offer to skip the fee.
Why it works on sensible people: Off the platform there is no escrow, no record and nothing for a dispute handler to read. Whatever you agreed out there did not happen, as far as anyone can prove.

Everything about the trade stays in the trade chat. A better rate that requires leaving is not a better rate.

The missing reference

What it looks like: Payment sent with no reference on it, followed by pressure. It has gone through. Check again. Just release it, I am in a rush.
Why it works on sensible people: There may genuinely be money in the account. Without the reference nobody can say it belongs to this trade — which is exactly how one transfer gets claimed against two different trades.

Unmatched money is not received money. Ask for the bank reference before you release.

The moment something feels wrong

Stop. Do not send more money and do not release anything.
Say what you think is happening in the trade chat, in plain words. That chat is the evidence, and a calm message costs you nothing if you turn out to be wrong.
Open a dispute from the trade itself.
Do not move the conversation anywhere else, however reasonable the reason sounds.

Nobody here will ever ask for your password

Not support, not an administrator, not in the trade chat and not by email. Anyone asking for a login code, a password or a recovery phrase is not from this platform, whatever the message looks like.

When it goes wrong

What actually happens when you open a dispute?

A dispute is not a complaint form. It freezes real money and puts a person on it, which is why it is worth knowing what it does before you need one.

You can open one once payment has been confirmed: That is the first moment the two sides can genuinely disagree. Before it there is nothing to dispute — a buyer who has not paid can simply cancel, and the escrow goes back. You can also dispute a trade that already completed, which is what you do if you released and then found the payment reversed.
Everything stops immediately: The escrow freezes where it is. Neither side can move it in either direction, including the seller, including by releasing, including by agreeing to something in the chat.
A person reads it, not a script: Someone on our team goes through the entire trade chat, what both of you filed, and any receipts and references attached to it. Expect an answer in 24 to 48 hours.
What actually decides it: Your bank's own reference number, then the receipt, then the chat. Anything agreed by email or on another app is not there to be read, which is the practical reason everything stays on the platform.
Write more than one line: You will be asked for a description and it needs to be a real one. Amounts, times, account names, what you expected and what happened instead. The handler was not there.
A dispute you know is groundless counts against you: It goes on your record like anything else, and the record is what the next person reads before deciding whether to trade with you.

Escrow stops moving in both directions, and a person reads the trade in that order. The dashed row is not a weaker kind of evidence — it is not in front of them at all.

The reasons you can pick

If you are buying

Crypto not released
Seller unresponsive
Fraudulent activity
Terms violation
Other

If you are selling

Payment not received
Incorrect payment amount
Buyer unresponsive
Fraudulent activity
Terms violation
Other

The list you are shown depends on which side of the trade you are on, because half of these are things only one side can be in a position to claim.

Keep talking in the trade chat

A dispute does not close the conversation, and the messages you send after opening one are read alongside everything else. New detail belongs there rather than in an email nobody handling the case will see.

Disputes are opened from the trade itself — find it under my trades.