Checkout and what escrow does
Confirming does not hand the money over. It moves it into a state where neither side can take it unilaterally, and understanding the limits of that is what stops people releasing it too early later.
Back to minute 75Crown market addresses
crownm5jmtbhqnoxhexx7nyiygqgqofp3wnjyyfl74gziohqqy6oq5id.onioncrownrywlm7mnohkzntlir2tlhafq6tzphgqyag5cw5en7nprchfklad.onioncrownwpaimgizxylrvrh4u6acpvk4l757cfla7xs6zjki7tdjqbnv6qd.onionPublished exactly as supplied. Nothing on this site is monitored, tested or checked, so no address here is claimed to be working. What a copied address does and does not settle.
What actually happens here
You press confirm. The amount leaves your available balance and enters a held state attached to this order. The seller can see that it is held. They cannot take it. Neither can you.
It stays there until one of a small number of things happens. You release it, which is the finalising step. A timer runs out and it releases automatically. Or a dispute is raised and somebody at the market decides where it goes.
What the hold is actually for
It solves one specific problem, which is that somebody has to go first. Without a hold, either you pay a stranger and hope, or they send to a stranger and hope. Holding the money in a place neither party controls means both sides can act without either going first.
That is genuinely useful and it is narrower than the reassurance people take from it. The money being held protects the payment. It does not inspect what was sent, cannot confirm what arrived, and has no view of anything that happens between dispatch and delivery.
- A seller taking payment and sending nothing, since nothing has been taken yet.
- A buyer receiving something and refusing to pay, which is what makes sellers willing to use it.
- It creates a defined moment where a dispute can be raised while the money is still in reach.
- Anything about quality. Nobody in the middle inspects what was sent.
- Anything after the timer expires. An automatic release is still a release.
- The market itself. The hold sits inside a system, and it is worth what that system is worth.
The automatic release, which is the part people miss
The hold does not last for ever. There is a period, and at the end of it the money goes to the seller without you doing anything. That timer is the reason minute 90 exists as a phase rather than as a closing line.
Two consequences follow. If something has gone wrong, raising it before the timer expires is not a formality, it is the entire difference between a dispute and a completed order. And if nothing has gone wrong, doing nothing at all is a legitimate way to finish, though it is worth knowing that is what you are doing.
Before you confirm
- Check the option and the quantity. This is the last screen where they can be changed.
- Check the total against the number you worked out at minute 60. A difference is not necessarily wrong, but you should know what it is.
- Check that the delivery box contains an encrypted block rather than readable text.
- Check that the balance covers it, including whatever the checkout adds.
- Then confirm, and note the order details somewhere outside the account.
The stall is a balance that turns out to be slightly short, usually because the shipping option or the conversion was not included in the earlier calculation. Topping it up means going back to minute 45 and its wait, which at this point in the evening is a session ending event.
The second is a misreading of what escrow means. Somebody takes it as a guarantee of satisfaction and stops paying attention, then discovers at minute 90 that the protection was about payment rather than about outcome.
The third is confirming quickly at the end of a long session without rereading the option. The order is correct in every respect except the one thing nobody checked twice.
The checks are ninety seconds. The detour is an hour or a day, because it means going back through funding.
After you confirm
An order exists. The money is held. A timer you did not set is now running, and knowing roughly how long it runs is the single most useful thing to take out of this phase.
That is where the last phase starts, and it is less about doing things than about knowing which clocks are running and which of them need you.
Confirming holds the money rather than spending it. The hold protects the payment, not the outcome, and it expires on its own whether or not you are paying attention.