Meeting someone to exchange cash for crypto has two failure modes: you hand over the cash and the coins never come, or you send the coins and the cash is short, fake, or gone. Both come from the same thing: at the meeting, somebody has to go first. The fix is not a better meeting place. It is to make sure nothing is decided at the meeting except handing over the cash.
How it works with the trade opened first
- 1Before you meet, the seller opens a private trade on iEscrow with the buyer’s username, with cash as the payment method. The seller’s crypto is locked at that moment.
- 2At the meeting, the buyer hands over the cash. The buyer declares the payment in the trade, in front of the seller.
- 3The seller counts the cash and confirms in the trade. The crypto is released to the buyer’s iEscrow balance on the spot. No waiting for network confirmations: the crypto was already there.
- 4If the seller takes the cash and does not confirm, it is no longer one word against another: there is an open trade, a declared payment, a 30-minute window and an arbiter at the end of it.
What the escrow does not solve
- Counterfeit bills. Count and check the cash before you confirm; after confirming, the crypto is released.
- Your safety at the meeting. Public place, daytime, no large amounts you cannot afford to be seen with. The escrow protects the trade, not the walk to the car.
- A buyer who disappears without paying: the window expires, the crypto returns to the seller, and nothing else happened.
The seller never shows up with the crypto "ready to send". It is already locked, which is the whole point: there is nothing to send at the meeting and nothing to steal.