Glossary · yescrow

Escrow contract: The smart contract that holds the price. It has no owner and no admin functions; it pays only the deal’s buyer, seller, fee address and referrer, as the deal’s rules say.
Deal ID: A 66-character fingerprint of the deal’s terms. Changing any term gives a different deal ID, which is why a signature for one deal can’t be used for another.
Registrar: The company you rent a domain through (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Porkbun…). Each has an IANA Registrar ID.
Registry: The operator of a domain ending (Verisign for .com). Its record says which registrar holds each domain.
RDAP: The registry’s public record service. yescrow reads the registrar, nameservers, dates and status from it.
IANA Registrar ID: The number every accredited registrar has, for example 1068 for Namecheap. Deals name the buyer’s registrar by it.
Registry proof (zkTLS): A cryptographic attestation, made with Reclaim, that a response really came from the registry’s RDAP server. The contract checks it before anything is paid.
“Before” and “after” proofs: For a move between registrars, a proof at acceptance shows the domain at another registrar; a later one shows it at the buyer’s.
Move to another registrar: The usual deal: the domain leaves the seller’s registrar for the buyer’s. Its proof is the strongest.
Same-registrar push: Both use the same registrar and the seller pushes the domain between accounts. Its proof only shows the nameservers changed, so the buyer’s account check carries the deal.
Nameservers: The servers a domain’s DNS points to. In a same-registrar push, the buyer’s nameservers are part of the terms.
Transfer code: A secret from the seller’s registrar (also called auth or EPP code) that lets the buyer’s registrar take the domain. Share it privately.
Registrar lock: A setting that blocks transfers. The seller turns it off before a move between registrars.
60-day lock: Registrars refuse transfers within 60 days of registration, of a previous transfer, or (at some registrars) of an owner change.
Accept by: The deadline for the other party to accept a proposal. After it, the proposal can be cancelled and any locked USDC returned.
Transfer window: Time from acceptance until the proof is due. Without a proof by then, the buyer can be refunded.
Challenge window: Time after the proof for the buyer to check their account and challenge. Without a challenge, the seller is paid.
Fee deadline: After a dispute opens, the time the other side has to match the arbitration fee before losing by default.
Challenge: The buyer’s way to open a dispute after a proof, when the domain isn’t in their account.
Kleros: A decentralized court on Arbitrum. Its jurors decide disputed deals; yescrow doesn’t choose them.
Arbitration fee: What Kleros charges for a case, in ETH. Each side pays it once; the winner gets theirs back.
Ruling: Kleros’s decision: the seller delivered (paid), didn’t deliver (refunded), or no decision (split 50/50).
Settlement: A split both parties sign during a dispute. The seller gets the agreed amount less the 1% fee and the buyer the rest. Arbitration fees go back to whoever paid them if Kleros has not been asked yet; after that, the held fee is split in half.
Concede: Give in during a deal or a dispute: the buyer pays the seller, or the seller refunds the buyer.
Keeper: Anyone who triggers a step whose deadline has passed, such as paying the seller after the challenge window. The yescrow service does it automatically.
Relayer: The yescrow service that submits your signatures and pays the gas. It can’t change anything you signed.
Gasless: You sign and the relayer pays the gas. Funding uses a token authorization (EIP-3009) whose nonce is the deal ID.
Deposit address: Each deal’s own address for paying without a signature: send the price there in the deal’s token, on Arbitrum One only, from any wallet or exchange. Nobody holds a key to it; it can only fund that deal or send its contents back to the buyer.
Typed signature (EIP-712): A signature over readable fields (deal, domain, parties, price, deadline). yescrow shows every field before your wallet opens.
Withdraw: Closing a deal credits balances; each party withdraws their own. A blocked wallet on one side can’t trap the other side’s money.
USDC: A dollar stablecoin issued by Circle. Circle can freeze USDC at any address.
USDT: A dollar stablecoin issued by Tether (on Arbitrum: USDT0). Tether can freeze USDT at any address. USDT deals use their own escrow contract.
Testnet: This deployment runs on Arbitrum Sepolia with test USDC and test USDT. Nothing here has real value.
TDRP and UDRP: ICANN procedures that can take a domain back after a sale: a transfer dispute (up to 12 months later) and trademark disputes. yescrow doesn’t cover them.