Money held until you say so

Escrow is the whole reason a stranger ships to you first. Understand it and the one way people forfeit it.

Escrow is the account that holds your payment in the gap between paying and receiving. BlackOps uses 2 of 3 multisig, which means the coins sit in an address that needs two of three keys to move. You hold one, the vendor holds one, the market holds one. No single party can walk off with the balance alone.

The normal flow

You fund the order and the coins go into the multisig, not into anyone's pocket. The vendor sees the order is funded and ships. When the package arrives and matches, you confirm receipt, and your key plus the vendor's releases the payment. Nothing about that requires you to trust the vendor further than the escrow lets you.

When it goes wrong

If a package never lands or arrives wrong, you open a dispute instead of confirming. Now the market's key is the tie-breaker, and staff weigh what each side can show against the vendor's history on the profile. A vendor with a long clean record and one with a week of bad reviews do not get read the same way.

The one move that throws it away

Finalize-early means releasing the money before the goods arrive. Some vendors ask for it. On an unproven seller it is simply handing over your coin and deleting the dispute button in the same click. Let escrow do its job. Confirm receipt when the package is in your hands and matches, and not one step sooner.