Start a deal

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Never used a wallet or paid in dollar coins? This page takes you from nothing to a finished deal.

What is different from an escrow company

An escrow company holds the buyer's money in its bank account and decides when to pay. With Yescrow nobody holds it: the price is locked where no person can reach it, Yescrow included, and it is paid out when the registry's own record shows the domain moved.

That takes two things you may not have used before:

  • Dollar coins instead of a bank transfer. The price is paid in USDC or USDT, coins worth $1 each. Exchanges sell them for a bank transfer and pay them out to your bank.
  • A wallet instead of an account. There is no sign-up, password or ID check at Yescrow. A free wallet app is your login, and it is where your money arrives.

What each side needs

  • Seller: a wallet. Nothing else until you are paid. To move the payout to your bank you need an account at an exchange, which you can open while the deal runs.
  • Buyer: a wallet, and the price in dollar coins at an exchange. If you have no exchange account yet, open one before you start the deal: its ID check can take from minutes to a few days.

Step 1: get a wallet (5 minutes, free)

  1. Install one. On a computer, add the MetaMask extension to your browser. On a phone, install the MetaMask app from the App Store or Google Play. Other wallets work too, such as Rabby, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet or Rainbow.
  2. Write down the 12 secret words it shows you, on paper, and keep them somewhere safe. They are the only key to the wallet: with them anyone can take what is in it, and without them nobody can restore it, not Yescrow and not the wallet's maker. Never type them into a website and never send them to anyone. Yescrow never asks for them.
  3. Find your wallet address. It starts with 0x and is 42 characters long, shown at the top of the wallet. It works like an account number: safe to share, and it is how a deal names you.
  4. Connect it. On Yescrow, press “Connect wallet” and pick your wallet. The first time you approve a step, your wallet may ask to switch to a network called Arbitrum One: say yes.

Using your wallet with Yescrow costs nothing. You approve each step in the wallet, after Yescrow shows you in words what it does, and Yescrow sends it for you.

Step 2, buyer only: get the dollars

  1. Open an account at an exchange that sends USDC on Arbitrum One, such as Kraken, Coinbase or Bitstamp, and pass its ID check.
  2. Send it a bank transfer and buy the coin the deal is in. Buy a little more than the price, since exchanges take a withdrawal fee. In the EU, most exchanges sell USDC and not USDT.
  3. Keep it at the exchange until the deal gives you its deposit address. You pay the deal straight from the exchange.

Every detail is in Paying by bank transfer.

The whole deal, in order

For the usual case, where the domain moves to the buyer's registrar. The deal page always shows whose turn it is.

  1. Seller: make a buy link. Enter the domain and the price, connect your wallet, and add your email so you hear when the buyer pays. Send the link to the buyer.
  2. Buyer: open the link and pay. Check the terms, enter your wallet address and your registrar, and add your email for alerts. Yescrow shows the deal's own deposit address. At your exchange, withdraw the price to it, choosing the network Arbitrum One. On any other network the money doesn't reach the deal and can be lost.
  3. Seller: accept. Once the full price is locked you get an email, if you gave one. Open My deals and accept by approving in your wallet. The payment and your acceptance both have to happen within 3 days of the buyer starting the deal, or the money goes back to the buyer.
  4. Seller: unlock the domain and send the transfer code to the buyer privately, for example by email. Do this only after you have accepted: by then the price is locked.
  5. Buyer: start the transfer at your registrar with the code. Registrars take from minutes to 5 days; the seller can speed it up by approving the release when their registrar emails them.
  6. Nobody: the proof. Yescrow checks the registry about every 10 minutes. When its record shows the domain at the buyer's registrar, the deal page says “Transfer proven”. This has to happen within 10 days of the seller accepting, or the buyer can be refunded.
  7. Buyer: check your account. Log in at your registrar. If the domain is there, pay the seller on the deal page, or do nothing and the seller is paid after 3 days. If it isn't, challenge on the deal page before those 3 days end.
  8. Seller: get paid. The price minus the 1% fee goes to your wallet: by itself if you turned on “Get paid automatically” on the deal page, or when you withdraw it in My deals. Both are free.
  9. Seller: move it to your bank, whenever you like. Send the coins from your wallet to your exchange, sell them and withdraw. This is the one step with a network fee of your own, a few cents paid in ETH on Arbitrum One: buy a few dollars' worth at the exchange and withdraw it to your wallet first. See Cashing out to your bank.

Buyer and seller at the same registrar? The order is different, and it matters: see Selling a domain. More on each side's steps in that guide and in Buying a domain.

What it costs

  • 1% of the price, taken from the seller's payout. The buyer pays Yescrow nothing.
  • Yescrow takes deals of $10 or more.
  • Your exchange's own fees for buying, selling and withdrawing.
  • Only if there is a dispute: an arbitration fee of about $2, which Yescrow normally pays for you on deals up to $2,000.

Four rules that keep you safe

  • Your 12 words stay on paper. Anyone asking for them is a thief, whoever they say they are.
  • Sellers: no transfer code before you have accepted the deal. The deal page then says “Locked in the escrow” under the domain.
  • Buyers: check the network and the address before you send. Arbitrum One, and the deposit address copied from the deal page. To be sure, send a small amount first: the deal page shows it arriving, and you send the rest to the same address.
  • Buyers: look in your registrar account before the 3 days end. After that the seller is paid, and a payment can't be taken back.

Stuck?

Write to teo@yescrow.xyz with the link to your deal. Nobody at Yescrow can move a deal's money, but we can tell you what the next step is.