What people build on it
The same contract underneath all of these. What changes is who holds which role and what the release condition is.
Bounties and open source
A project funds a bounty before anyone starts, so contributors can see the money is real rather than promised. Payment releases on merge or on maintainer approval.
No trust is required between a maintainer in Berlin and a contributor in Manila, and the contributor does not need to already hold ada to get paid.
This is the one we run ourselves, as a customer of the same public API you would use.
Freelance and agency milestones
A client locks the full project value and releases it milestone by milestone. The freelancer can verify the money exists before starting. The client knows none of it moves until work lands.
Worth comparing against the ten to twenty three per cent that centralised freelance platforms take, and against how those platforms decide disputes.
Marketplace transactions
Goods, digital assets or services. Funds hold until delivery is confirmed or a challenge window closes, and your commission routes in the same transaction as the release.
You keep the customer relationship, the branding and the dispute decision. We are not building a marketplace to compete with yours.
Security deposits and bonds
Rentals, equipment hire, event bookings, contractor bonds. The deposit returns automatically unless a valid claim is raised before the deadline.
Refund by default removes the most common source of deposit disputes, which is not disagreement about damage but the holder simply not giving the money back.
Grants and milestone funding
Funds locked per milestone rather than paid up front, with reviewers approving on chain. The funding body and the public can both audit what was released and when, without trusting a report.
Directly applicable to treasury and grant programmes, including Catalyst.
Agent commerce
An agent commissions work from another agent or from a person. Escrow holds the value and releases against a condition, which is what agent payments need and what a one shot payment cannot do.
Neither party needs a legal relationship or a shared jurisdiction. Our agent tooling proposes transactions and never signs them.
Peer to peer and OTC
Two people who found each other on Discord and have no reason to trust one another. Cheaper and faster than an incorporated escrow agent, with terms both sides can read before committing.
Not sure which shape fits
The question that usually settles it is who approves and what they are approving. If you can answer that, the rest of the configuration follows. The quote endpoint will price it for you before you commit to anything.