The Escrow Layer for the Stablecoin Economy
Trustless Work is building the open-source, non-custodial escrow infrastructure that makes conditional payments programmable — globally, at scale, and without intermediaries.
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Trustless Work is building the escrow infrastructure for the stablecoin economy — a programmable, non-custodial layer that allows platforms to embed conditional payments directly into their products without building escrow systems from scratch.
As stablecoins turn payments into software, escrow becomes the missing primitive. Funds increasingly need to move based on milestones, approvals, deliveries, and compliance — not just transfers. Until now, this logic has been slow, expensive, and bespoke.
🔹 Escrow already underpins $400B+ in annual transactions
Marketplaces like eBay and Upwork were forced to build escrow in-house because no reusable infrastructure existed. Most platforms can’t afford that path. Trustless Work abstracts escrow into a plug-and-play API — making it as easy to integrate as payments, without custodians, legal overhead, or multi-month development cycles.
💡 The Problem: Escrow Never Became Infrastructure
Escrow underpins global commerce, but traditional implementations were designed for banks and lawyers — not internet-scale platforms. As a result, escrow never evolved into a reusable, composable layer.
Slow
Settlement often takes days or weeks, breaking modern cash flow expectations and introducing unnecessary friction.
Expensive
Fees of 5–8%, combined with legal and banking overhead, make escrow inaccessible for most transactions and platforms.
Non-Composable
Escrow systems are siloed, bespoke, and tightly coupled to institutions — not APIs developers can reuse.
📌 Why didn’t escrow scale with the internet?
Because escrow was never abstracted into infrastructure — every implementation required banks, lawyers, and months of bespoke work.
🚨 Blockchain Escrow Didn’t Fix the Root Problem
On-chain escrows promised speed and transparency, but most approaches simply replaced institutions with code — without solving usability, integration, or experimentation costs.
Specialized Engineering
Writing and maintaining escrow contracts requires scarce, expensive smart contract expertise.
Slow Time-to-Market
Secure escrow deployments still take months due to audits, integrations, and operational complexity.
Fragmented Infrastructure
Wallets, custody models, on/off-ramps, and compliance remain disconnected, pushing risk and complexity onto teams.
📌 Why hasn’t on-chain escrow gone mainstream?
Because it optimized trust assumptions — not developer experience, composability, or speed to production.
🔑 The Solution: Escrow, Finally Abstracted
Trustless Work turns escrow into a reusable infrastructure layer — separating conditional payment logic from legal processes, banking rails, and bespoke smart contract development.
Infrastructure-Grade Escrow API
A production-ready escrow layer that abstracts custody, settlement, and smart contract logic behind a stable, developer-first interface.
Standardized Escrow Templates
Battle-tested models for marketplaces, security deposits, grants, crowdfunding, and milestone-based payments — designed to be reused, not reinvented.
Built-In Visibility & Control
Native backoffice tools and an escrow viewer provide real-time insight into state, approvals, milestones, and releases — without custom dashboards.
Open-Source Ecosystem
An expanding network of developers, integrations, and templates compounding around a shared escrow standard.
Global-First by Design
Designed for stablecoins today, with clean interfaces to on-ramps, off-ramps, and cross-border payment infrastructure.
🚀 Platforms can integrate programmable escrow in minutes — not months — without hiring blockchain engineers, managing custody, or negotiating banking relationships.
📊 Market Opportunity
Trustless Work does not compete for payment volume. It controls the conditions under which value moves — attaching to existing flows wherever trust, milestones, or approvals are required.
As stablecoins turn payments into software, escrow becomes a horizontal layer across global commerce — not a niche vertical.
Global B2B payments where conditional settlement is common
Marketplaces & e-commerce flows requiring buyer–seller trust
Cross-border work where milestones gate release of funds
Existing escrow volume ready for abstraction
💰 Business Model
Trustless Work generates revenue directly from real economic activity, aligning incentives with usage, volume, and long-term platform adoption.
Transaction Fees
A small protocol fee (starting at 0.3%) applied when funds are released from escrow — directly tied to transaction volume and platform usage.
Enterprise & Platform Plans
Subscription-based plans for high-volume platforms requiring advanced configurations, SLAs, compliance support, and dedicated infrastructure.
Integration & Enablement Services
Optional paid services for enterprise integrations, escrow design, and deployment — accelerating time-to-production while reinforcing long-term platform adoption.
📈 The core business is usage-based and scalable. Services are a strategic accelerator — not a dependency.
🚀 Competitive Edge
Trustless Work is not competing with escrow providers or marketplaces. It replaces the need to build escrow at all — by turning it into infrastructure platforms can adopt once and scale indefinitely.
Fast by Design
On-chain settlement and automated milestone releases remove manual approvals, intermediaries, and multi-day settlement cycles.
Structurally Lower Cost
A flat 0.3% protocol fee versus 5–8% typical of custodial escrow providers and marketplace-tied flows.
Built to Compound
API-first, non-custodial, and open-source by default — enabling integrations, templates, and ecosystems to compound over time.
📌 We don’t replace escrow providers — we make them unnecessary by abstracting escrow into infrastructure.
📢 Traction & Ecosystem Momentum
15,000+ repository clones, driven by developers integrating Trustless Work into real products — without a traditional sales motion.
20+ MVPs in active development across marketplaces, crowdfunding, invoicing, real estate, grants, and trade finance — all built on the same escrow primitives.
250+ open-source contributors shipping escrow templates, integrations, and developer tooling into the shared ecosystem.
Early institutional backing validating escrow as critical infrastructure for stablecoins and on-chain capital flows.
Early Institutional Support
📈 Trustless Work is becoming the default escrow layer developers reach for when building programmable payment flows.
🎯 Fundraising
Round Size
$1.2M
Valuation
$12M
Trustless Work is raising a $1.2M pre-seed round at a $12M valuation to harden the escrow infrastructure layer and accelerate adoption where demand already exists.
Developer Growth
Scaling open-source adoption through templates, documentation, and ecosystem-led integrations.
Multi-Chain Expansion
Extending escrow support across multiple blockchains while maintaining a unified standard.
Security & Scalability
Independent audits, backoffice hardening, and long-term reliability improvements.
$200K+ in non-dilutive grants already deployed from Draper University and the Stellar Community Fund.
Meet the teamContinue the conversation
If programmable escrow infrastructure fits your investment thesis, this is the natural next step.