What Does Blockchain Escrow Mean for Your Business?

The word “blockchain” can sound intimidating, but the escrow behind a Mercato deal does something very familiar: it holds money in the middle until agreed conditions are met. The difference is that the rules are enforced by code on a public ledger, not by a bank’s back office.

What escrow means here

When investors fund your deal, their USDC does not land in Mercato’s bank account or yours. It goes into a Trustless Work escrow contract on Stellar. The contract holds the funds and only releases them to your supplier when a delivery milestone is approved.

Why this protects everyone

• Non-custodial — Mercato never holds or can divert the deal funds; only the contract rules move money.
• Transparent — anyone can verify the balance and the release history on-chain.
• Milestone-based — your supplier is paid in stages as work is proven, reducing the risk of paying for undelivered goods.
• Predictable — the release conditions are fixed when the escrow is deployed, so no one can quietly change the terms.

What you actually have to do

In practice, you connect a wallet, sign once to deploy the escrow when you create the deal, and later approve milestones as your supplier delivers. You do not need to understand the cryptography — just that the money is held under clear, unchangeable rules until delivery is proven.