How ChainTrade works
Direct P2P trades without bridging or wrapping — live on 5 EVM chains, Solana next. Non-custodial on every chain: you only lose funds if you sign something wrong yourself.
Four steps, two signatures
You and your counterparty agree on what each side puts in. The offer hash commits to the exact items — nothing can change afterwards.
Each side locks their assets in the escrow contract on their chain (any of the 5 live EVM chains). Only the contract logic can move them.
Once both signatures exist, anyone — you, our bot, or a stranger chasing the tip — can finalize on-chain. Assets swap.
Each party signs one short off-chain message over the offer hash: "release mine when theirs releases too". No gas needed.
- Connect your wallet (MetaMask, Rabby, WalletConnect)
- Build the offer on the trade page
- Click Lock my items → approve the transaction
- Click Sign Release → sign one message (no gas)
- Wait for the other side to do the same
- Assets arrive automatically
- Before lock: you hold your own assets — nothing is committed.
- After lock: the escrow contract holds them. Reclaimable after the deadline.
- After both signatures: settlement finalizes automatically — no admin involved.
- On timeout: full self-serve refund. 48 h on Ethereum/Base.
Why it is safe
Your assets never sit in a wallet we control. They are locked inside an immutable, verified contract that only the contract logic can move — never us, never a multisig.
Both parties sign the exact same offer hash (keccak256 of items + expiry + nonce + creator). A different trade produces a different hash — signatures cannot be replayed or reused, on any chain.
Once both release signatures exist, anyone can trigger settlement and earn the small pre-paid tip. No single privileged key can block, delay, or steal a trade — our relayer is a convenience, never a requirement.
If a trade never completes, you reclaim your locked assets yourself once the timeout passes — one click on your Account page, straight back to your wallet. Plus hard caps per lock, an emergency pause that can never block refunds, and all source verified on-chain.
The deployed contracts
Escrow V2: up to 24 assets per side in one lock, OpenZeppelin stack, permissionless finalize with dual ECDSA signatures, on-chain 3 % fee + referral split. Timeout: 48 h.
Byte-identical deployments of the Ethereum V2 contract — same owner, same caps, same test suite. L2 gas is a fraction of mainnet.
PDA vaults + dual Ed25519 signature enforcement, permissionless release matching the EVM model. Timeout: 4 h. Solana assets unlock in trades at launch.
Common questions
What if the other party locks but never signs the release?
After the timeout (48 h on every EVM chain, 4 h on Solana at launch) you refund yourself with one click under "Recover stuck assets" on your Account page — everything comes back, including your pre-paid tip. No approval, no admin, no support ticket.
Who runs the relayer bot?
We run one as a convenience. But finalize is permissionless — the maker pre-pays a tiny tip that anyone can earn by submitting the final transaction. If our bot disappears, the trade still settles.
Do you take a fee?
3 % on fungible assets (ETH, tokens) on successful trades. NFTs are always fee-free.
Can items change after the offer is signed?
No. The offer hash commits to the exact items, amounts and addresses. Any change produces a different hash, and the contracts reject mismatched signatures.
Is the code audited?
The EVM contract is verified on Etherscan, Basescan, Sourcify and Routescan, with a clean Slither run and a full Foundry test suite. The Solana program passed three internal audit rounds. An external audit is planned before volume caps are raised.