How Settle works

Getting started

What is Settle

Settle is a person-to-person market for ETH on Robinhood Chain. Sellers cash out to PayPal, Revolut, Zelle, a bank account or a gift card (37 ways to pay), and buyers pay them directly. Settle is the middleman: the seller's ETH waits in an onchain escrow until the seller confirms the money arrived, and our team settles any disagreement.

Quick start

1. 1

   Sign in with X

   Your handle and your trade history are your reputation on the market. A wallet on Robinhood Chain is created for you at the same time.
2. 2

   Pick an offer, or post an ad

   The market lists live offers, best price first. Filter by payment method and amount, or post your own ad with your price, limits and ways to pay.
3. 3

   Get paid, or receive your ETH

   Selling: the buyer pays you directly, you check your account and release the ETH. Buying: you pay the seller, mark it as paid, and the ETH lands in your wallet once they release.

What you need

• An X account. It's how you sign in.
• A wallet on Robinhood Chain. One is created for you when you sign in with X. You can also use any 0x address you control.
• ETH on Robinhood Chain, if you sell: the amount you sell plus the 1% fee.
• A payment account in your own name (PayPal, bank, app…) to pay or get paid.

Cash out (sell ETH)

There are two ways to sell. Either way your ETH is locked in escrow before the buyer pays, and nothing leaves until you release it.

Answer a buy ad

The quickest way to cash out once: someone already wants to buy.

1. 1

   Find a buyer

   Open Market → Cash out. Buyers are sorted highest price first; filter by how you want to be paid.
2. 2

   Open the trade

   Enter the amount, pick the payment method, add where you get paid (saved for next time) and your refund wallet. The price is fixed from now on.
3. 3

   Lock your ETH

   Within 30 minutes, send the ETH plus the 1% fee to this trade's escrow, in one transaction from your wallet. Miss the window and the trade cancels.
4. 4

   Wait for the payment

   The buyer only sees your payment details once the ETH is locked. They pay you directly, then mark it as paid.
5. 5

   Release

   Check that the money is settled in your own account, then release. The ETH goes to the buyer, the fee to Settle.

Post a sell ad

Best if you sell often: fund once, and buyers come to you.

1. 1

   Create the ad

   On Post an ad, pick a price (the market price plus or minus a margin, or a fixed price, within 20% of the market), your limits per trade, up to 12 payment methods with your details, a payment window and your terms.
2. 2

   Fund it once

   Deposit ETH into the ad's escrow. It covers as many trades as it can, fee included. Top it up any time from My trades.
3. 3

   Buyers open trades

   Each trade sets its ETH aside from your ad's escrow straight away, so the buyer can pay at once.
4. 4

   Release each trade

   Check the money, then release. Unused ETH stays in the ad: withdraw it any time from My trades, Settle pays the gas.

Your refund wallet

When you answer a buy ad, you choose a refund wallet. If the trade doesn't complete (cancelled, timed out, or a dispute decided for you), everything in that trade's escrow goes back there automatically, including anything extra you sent. It's fixed when the trade opens and only you set it: a refund never goes to “whoever deposited”.

Sell ads don't need one: a cancelled trade's ETH simply stays in your ad.

When to release

Some payments can be pulled back after you release: card-funded PayPal payments, some bank transfers, stolen gift cards. Prefer instant, irreversible methods and payments from an account in the buyer's name.

Buy ETH

Buying is free: you pay the price in the ad, nothing more. On a sell ad the seller's ETH is already in escrow before you pay.

Step by step

1. 1

   Pick an offer

   The market lists sellers lowest price first. Filter by payment method and amount, and check the seller's completed trades and terms.
2. 2

   Open the trade

   Enter an amount within the ad's limits, choose how you pay and the wallet that receives the ETH. The price locks.
3. 3

   Pay the seller

   Send exactly the amount shown, with the method you picked, from an account in your own name. Gift cards: post the code in the trade chat.
4. 4

   Mark it as paid

   Tap I've paid before the payment window ends.
5. 5

   Receive your ETH

   The seller checks the payment and releases. The ETH lands in your wallet.

The payment window

Each ad sets how long you have to pay: 15, 30, 45 or 60 min, counted from the moment the ETH is in escrow. If it runs out before you mark the payment as sent, the trade cancels itself. You can cancel yourself any time before that.

You can have up to 3 open trades at once as the one answering ads. On your own buy ad the seller locks the ETH first: you only see their payment details once it's in escrow, so never pay before.

Paying the right way

• The exact amount, in one payment.
• From an account in your own name. Sellers can refuse third-party payments.
• Don't mention crypto, ETH or Settle in the payment note. Leave it empty or neutral.
• Keep your receipt until the trade is completed.

The escrow

The escrow is what lets two strangers trade: the seller can't take the ETH back while the buyer pays, and the buyer only gets it once the seller confirms.

How the vault works

Timeouts

Cancellations and leftovers

When a trade is cancelled, nothing is lost:

• On a sell ad, the ETH stays in the ad's escrow, ready for the next buyer or for you to withdraw.
• On a buy ad, the trade's escrow is refunded to the seller's refund wallet.
• Anything that lands on a finished trade's escrow later (a late deposit, a top-up, an overpayment) is swept back to the seller automatically.

Proof of escrow

Live escrow balances and every release, with links to the explorer, are on one public page.

Trade statuses

Every trade shows one status. The colours mean the same thing everywhere in Settle.

The usual path

Trades on a sell ad skip the first step: the ETH is already in escrow.

Every status

• Waiting for escrowThe seller has 30 minutes to lock the ETH. Buyer: don't pay yet.
• ETH in escrowThe ETH is locked. The buyer pays, then marks it as paid within the payment window.
• Payment sentThe buyer says they paid. The seller checks their account, then releases.
• ReleasingThe vault is sending the ETH to the buyer. It takes a few moments.
• CompletedThe ETH is in the buyer's wallet. Done.
• In disputeSomeone flagged a problem. The ETH stays locked until Settle decides.
• CancelledEnded without a release. The ETH went back to the seller or stayed in their ad.

Who can do what

Disputes

A dispute freezes the ETH in escrow until a Settle admin reviews the trade. Open one from the trade room, with a short note on what went wrong.

When to open one

• Buyer: you paid and marked it as paid, but the seller doesn't release.
• Buyer: you paid, but the payment window closed before you could mark it.
• Seller: the buyer marked it as paid, but nothing arrived, the amount is wrong, or it came from someone else's account.
• Seller: the gift card code doesn't work or was already used.

What proof to post

Post everything in the trade chat: it's what Settle reads.

• A receipt or screenshot of the payment: date, amount, sender and recipient.
• The transaction or reference ID from your app or bank.
• Seller: a screenshot of your account history showing what arrived, or didn't.
• Gift cards: a photo of the card and of the store receipt.

What Settle decides

The decision is posted in the trade chat. Messages from the team are labelled “Settle team”.

Fees & limits

One fee, paid by the seller. Buying is free.

Fees

Limits

Example

Payment methods

37 ways to pay, sent directly between the two of you. Settle never touches the money, so every method works the same way: the seller shares where to pay, the buyer pays.

Safety

A few rules cover almost every problem we see.

The rules

• Release only on settled money

  Check your own balance, not a screenshot. Pending is not paid.

• Same name, same account

  Pay and get paid from accounts in your own name. Refuse third-party payments.

• Keep it in the trade chat

  Talk and share proof in the trade chat: it's what Settle reads in a dispute.

• Gift cards: redeem first

  Redeem or check the card's balance before you release, and keep the photo of the card and receipt.

• Never trade outside Settle

  A deal moved to DMs has no escrow and no dispute. Anyone asking for that is a red flag.

• Keep crypto out of payment notes

  Don't mention crypto, ETH or Settle when you pay: some services freeze those payments.

Terms & risks

For developers

Everything that holds money is onchain. You don't have to take our word for it: check the vault yourself.

Network

Contracts

• Escrow vaultContract · verified source
  0x6B5bD566A5D11610320a8c2792e5508A1d6F3DB4

  Holds every escrow route and pays out.

• LauncherContract · verified source
  0xed294E43fDDc6197C0775F451F468c965E50d0B8

  From the original product; trades don't use it.

• OperatorKeeper wallet
  0xC9248d8BA3c8561d9a7d5b8676C0553c11834823

  The only address allowed to pay out of the vault.

Escrow deposits carry no platform share, so the vault's owner can't withdraw them: only the operator can, through a payout.

Escrow routes

Each escrow is a route inside the vault, identified by a hash. Ids are the ones in the page URLs: /ads/<adId> and /trade/<tradeId>.

sell ad          keccak256("settle:ad:<adId>")
trade on buy ad  keccak256("settle:trade:<tradeId>")

Trades on a sell ad draw from the ad's route. Sellers fund a route with depositFees(routeId, 0x0, 0). Each payout's reference is the hash of settle:trade:<tradeId>:release (or :fee, :refund); a retry appends :2, :3… because the vault never accepts the same reference twice.

Verify it yourself

With Foundry's cast installed, replace the <…> parts and run:

cast keccak "settle:trade:<tradeId>"

cast call 0x6B5bD566A5D11610320a8c2792e5508A1d6F3DB4 \
  "routeBalance(bytes32)(uint256)" <routeId> \
  --rpc-url https://rpc.mainnet.chain.robinhood.com

cast call 0x6B5bD566A5D11610320a8c2792e5508A1d6F3DB4 "totalRouteBalance()(uint256)" \
  --rpc-url https://rpc.mainnet.chain.robinhood.com
cast balance 0x6B5bD566A5D11610320a8c2792e5508A1d6F3DB4 --rpc-url https://rpc.mainnet.chain.robinhood.com

cast call 0x6B5bD566A5D11610320a8c2792e5508A1d6F3DB4 "refUsed(bytes32)(bool)" \
  $(cast keccak "settle:trade:<tradeId>:release") \
  --rpc-url https://rpc.mainnet.chain.robinhood.com

cast logs --address 0x6B5bD566A5D11610320a8c2792e5508A1d6F3DB4 \
  --from-block 79002157 --rpc-url https://rpc.mainnet.chain.robinhood.com \
  "RoutePayout(bytes32 indexed routeId, address indexed to, uint256 amount, bytes32 indexed ref)" \
  <routeId>

FAQ