escrow
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Paying by bank transfer

Yescrow holds USDC or USDT, dollar coins worth $1 each. With euros or dollars in a bank, buy them at an exchange, then send them straight to the deal.

What you need

  • An account at an exchange that sells USDC or USDT for a bank transfer. The exchange checks your ID, as banks do.
  • The deal's deposit address, shown on the deal page (or on the page you reach after starting a deal and choosing to pay from an exchange).
  • A wallet for the deal. It stays the buyer: refunds and every later step go to it. It needs no money in it.

Steps

  1. Buy the coin. At the exchange, buy USDC or USDT, whichever the deal is in, with a bank transfer (SEPA, ACH or wire). Buy a little more than the price: many exchanges take their withdrawal fee out of the amount you send.
  2. Withdraw it on Arbitrum One. On the exchange's withdrawal page, choose the network Arbitrum One (sometimes just “Arbitrum”; for USDT, OKX lists it as “Arbitrum One (USDT0)”). Not Ethereum, BNB Chain, Tron, Polygon or any other network: sent on Tron, it is lost. Most exchanges that offer Tron (TRC-20) offer Arbitrum One too, usually for a lower fee. If yours doesn't offer Arbitrum One for the deal's coin, use another exchange.
  3. Paste the deposit address. Copy it from the deal page. Each deal has its own address, so it can only fund that deal.
  4. Wait for it to arrive. The deal page shows what has arrived. Once the full price is there, Yescrow starts the deal or accepts the seller's, and the deal goes on as usual. Anything above the price is credited back to you; withdraw it from My deals.

You can also withdraw to your own wallet first and approve the payment from it, as in Buying a domain. That costs nothing either.

If something goes wrong

  • Too little arrived. Send the rest to the same address. Nothing happens until the full price is there.
  • Nothing more arrives in time. If the full price isn't there by the deal's accept-by time, what arrived goes back to the buyer's wallet. Yescrow sends it; anyone can.
  • The wrong coin, on Arbitrum One. It goes back to the buyer's wallet, at any time.
  • The wrong network. Deals take money on Arbitrum One only. Money sent to the deposit address on another network can't reach the deal. On Ethereum-style networks (Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon and similar) it isn't lost: write to teo@yescrow.xyz and it can go back to the buyer's wallet on that network. Sent on Tron, Solana or any network unlike these, it is lost: nobody holds a key to the deposit address, including Yescrow. Check the network before you send.

Why Yescrow doesn't take cards or bank transfers for the price

To take the price by card or bank transfer, Yescrow would have to hold your money, which the escrow is built to avoid. Card payments can also be reversed for months after the seller has been paid, and the payment to the seller can't. The exchange handles the ID checks and the card or bank side; Yescrow only ever sees the USDC or USDT.

  • In the EU, most licensed exchanges no longer sell USDT. USDC is the easier one there.
  • In the US, Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini send on Arbitrum One. Binance.US doesn't.
  • On this test version there is no real money: get test USDC from Circle's faucet (choose Arbitrum Sepolia). Test USDT comes from the TestUSDT contract (its mint function, at most 10,000 at a time).