Blockchain escrow for international trade

60 years of trade finance,
reimagined

Letters of Credit have not changed since the 1960s. Documents, banks, reviewers — replaced by self-executing code on Alephium blockchain. Trustless settlement for every business.

Get started → See how it works
$ $ Container $ Payment
1.0%
Protocol fee — up to 70% less than L/C
Direct
Release via buyer approval on-chain
Zero
Payment intermediaries

For both sides of the trade

Works for Buyer.
Works for Seller.

Most payment tools protect one side. FlowEscrow aligns the incentives of both.

BUYER locks funds $ FlowEscrow SELLER gets paid payment locked on delivery
Buyer

Pay with confidence.
No risk of non-delivery.

  • 🔒
    Funds locked until conditions are met
    Your stablecoin stays in the smart contract until you review evidence and approve each milestone. You never pay for goods that have not been verified.
  • 🔍
    Real-time shipment visibility
    Track your cargo and payment status on the same dashboard. No chasing emails. No waiting for bank confirmations.
  • ⚖️
    Dispute protection built in
    If something goes wrong after delivery, raise a dispute within 14 days. Both parties agree on the split, and the smart contract automatically distributes the funds.
  • 💸
    Up to 70% less than a bank L/C
    1.0% flat fee. No issuance, confirmation, advising, or SWIFT charges stacking up.
Seller

Get paid faster.
Cash flow from day one.

  • ⚡
    Partial payment starts at shipment
    With a traditional L/C, you wait until full delivery. With FlowEscrow, your first payment arrives as soon as the buyer approves the shipment milestone.
  • ✅
    Payment is guaranteed by code
    Funds are already locked in the contract before you ship. If the buyer disappears, the contract still pays you on delivery.
  • 📄
    No bank document preparation
    No bill of lading submission to banks, no certificate of origin, no bank document checks. Upload evidence directly and the buyer approves on-chain.
  • 🌍
    Work with any buyer, anywhere
    No need to assess creditworthiness or bank relationships. The contract enforces the terms regardless of who they are.

How it works

4 steps to complete

No wallet knowledge or blockchain experience required. Just connect your Alephium wallet.

01

Connect wallet

Connect your Alephium wallet. Your address becomes your business identity on-chain.

02

Lock stablecoin

Enter the trade amount, choose your stablecoin (USDT or USDC), and select a payment template. Funds are securely held in the smart contract.

03

Milestones verified

At each milestone, the seller claims completion with evidence. The buyer reviews and approves — funds release on-chain instantly.

04

Buyer confirms delivery

Once delivered, the buyer confirms receipt and the remaining balance reaches the seller. If the buyer does not confirm within 14 days, the contract releases automatically.

PAYMENT TIMELINE — $50,000 stablecoin example

Shipment departed
$15,000
30% released
Customs cleared
$15,000
30% released
Delivered + buyer confirmed
$20,000
Remaining 40% released
$500 fee (1.0%) deducted automatically at creation. Seller receives $49,500.

Security & Trust

Why you can trust it

No banks, no intermediaries, no reviewers. Code executes the moment conditions are met — this is trustless.

Immutable smart contracts+

Once deployed, no one can modify the escrow contract — not FlowEscrow, not the operator, not regulators. Funds move only when the coded conditions are met. The code is open source and verifiable by anyone.

USDT / USDC — stable settlement+

Not volatile crypto. Choose from USDT or USDC — pegged 1:1 to the US dollar, bridged from Ethereum via Wormhole and verified on Alephium. Your payment amount will not fluctuate with exchange rates.

Evidence-based verification+

Traditional L/C requires a bank officer to manually verify documents. FlowEscrow lets the buyer verify directly — the seller uploads evidence, the buyer reviews it, and approves on-chain. No intermediaries, no delays, no document discrepancies.

Proof of Work — Alephium blockchain+

Alephium runs on Proof of Work — the same security model as Bitcoin. Attackers must consume real energy to rewrite the chain. BlockFlow sharding achieves 10,000+ TPS while the Alphred VM eliminates flash loan and reentrancy attacks by design.

All contract addresses and transactions are publicly verifiable on the Block Explorer in real time.

Comparison

How is it different
from L/C?

Not just cost and speed. The underlying structure is fundamentally different.

Confirmed Letter of Credit
Fee: 1 - 2.5%
Issuance, confirmation, advising, SWIFT — costs stack up
Document review: days to 2 weeks
One typo means rejection. Resubmit and wait again
Humans decide
Bank officers review documents manually. Errors and bias creep in
Bank account required
Companies in emerging markets may be excluded
No partial payments
Seller waits until full delivery to receive any funds
FlowEscrow
Fee: 1.0% only
No add-ons. Deducted once at creation
Setup: 5 min. Transfer: instant
Stablecoin arrives the moment the buyer approves the milestone on-chain
Evidence decides
Buyer reviews seller evidence and approves directly. No intermediary verification
Wallet-based access
No bank account needed. Wallet connects in seconds
Partial payment at booking
Seller cash flow improves before delivery
Confirmed L/C$1,650
$1,650
FlowEscrow$500
$500
✂️ $0 saved per $50K trade
~70% cheaper than confirmed L/C

Based on typical bank L/C fees for a $50,000 transaction. Actual L/C costs vary by bank, country risk, and transaction complexity.

Before you start

One-time setup.
Then fully browser-based.

FlowEscrow runs entirely in your browser. No extra software beyond the wallet. Set up once and never again.

A
~3 min

Install the wallet

Add the Alephium browser extension to Chrome. This is the only software to install. It takes about 3 minutes, and you only do it once.

Get the wallet extension →
Chrome · Firefox · Brave supported
B
~10 min

Get stablecoins into your wallet

Buy USDT or USDC on any major exchange (Gate.io, Binance, MEXC), then use the Alephium bridge to move them to your wallet.

Open the bridge →
Takes about 15 min the first time. Never again after that.
C
~2 min

Create escrows — forever

Enter the trade amount, choose a payment template, and send the proposal. Done. Every escrow after this takes under 2 minutes.

Go to dashboard →
No repeat setup. Works on any device with Chrome.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need crypto knowledge to use this?+

No crypto knowledge required. Connect your Alephium wallet — the extension takes under a minute to install. Your wallet address is your identity on-chain.

Where do I get stablecoins?+

Purchase USDT or USDC on exchanges such as Gate.io, MEXC, or Binance, then bridge to your Alephium wallet via bridge.alephium.org.

How does milestone approval work?+

The seller claims each milestone via the dashboard and can upload evidence (shipping receipts, photos). The buyer reviews and approves on-chain. If the buyer does not respond within the approval period, funds auto-release to the seller.

What if cargo is delayed or lost?+

If the global timeout (default 180 days) is reached without delivery, funds are automatically returned to the buyer. Within 14 days of delivery, the buyer can raise a dispute.

Who pays the 1.0% fee?+

By default, the buyer pays (deducted from stablecoin at escrow creation). You can configure it as seller-paid or split 50/50. No hidden fees beyond 1.0%.

Can I customize the milestone percentages?+

Yes. Choose from 5 templates — Custom (fully flexible, 1–5 milestones), At Sight (100%), Advance + Balance (30/70), 3-Stage (30/30/40), or Deferred Payment. Conditions cannot be changed once deployed.

Is the smart contract really secure?+

Contracts are written in Ralph, which structurally prevents reentrancy attacks, flash loan exploits, and unlimited approvals. The code is open source on GitHub.

Is multilingual support available?+

Yes. The dashboard, documentation, and support are available in English, Japanese, and Chinese.

Early Access

Join the waitlist

Be among the first to use FlowEscrow on mainnet. We will only email you when it launches.

No spam. We will only email you when mainnet launches.

You are in!

We will notify you when FlowEscrow launches on mainnet.