Trust is the product, and it's broken
Most local crypto trade happens in group chats and DMs. There is no escrow, no record, and no recourse. One bad counterparty ends someone's participation permanently.
Peer-to-peer, without the trust gap
The escrow layer for peer-to-peer money
CutOut is a digital-asset marketplace where strangers can trade safely. Assets lock in escrow, every movement writes to an immutable ledger, and real people resolve what software can't.
- 1.4B+
- adults still underserved by banking rails
- 70%
- of P2P volume happens on mobile-money corridors
- <1%
- target dispute rate at scale
- 6
- core systems in the MVP build
Directional figures drawn from public market research and internal targets. Full sourcing in the data room.
The problem
Billions of people trade value peer-to-peer. Almost none of them are protected.
“Every trader we talk to knows someone who lost money to a counterparty they trusted in a chat group.”
Behind every statistic is a person building a livelihood. CutOut exists because the people who power these corridors deserve infrastructure that treats their trust as something worth protecting.
Payment rails don't speak crypto
Mobile money, bank transfers and cash still settle the fiat leg. Global exchanges ignore these corridors, so liquidity fragments across informal brokers.
Disputes have nowhere to go
When a payment is claimed but not received, there is no neutral party, no evidence trail and no decision anyone can appeal to. Fraud goes unpunished and unlearned.
The trade loop
Five steps. One of them is a promise, and we never treat it as payment.
A buyer clicking “I paid” is a claim, not a settlement. Everything in CutOut is designed around that single distinction — it is where every P2P platform either earns trust or loses it.
- 01
Discover
Buyer filters offers by asset, currency, payment method, price and trader standing.
- 02
Escrow locks
The seller's asset is moved into isolated escrow before payment instructions are ever shown.
- 03
Fiat settles
The buyer pays through their own rail and marks payment — a claim, never a confirmation.
- 04
Seller confirms
The seller verifies receipt and releases. If they can't, either side opens a dispute.
- 05
Ledger closes
Escrow releases, entries post, reputation updates, and the audit trail is sealed.
ESCROW LOCKEDPAYMENT MARKEDSELLER CONFIRMSRELEASEDLEDGER SEALED
Why it holds
Six principles we refuse to trade away for speed.
Escrow by default
The seller's asset is locked the moment a trade opens, and becomes unavailable to them until release, refund or a moderated decision. No trade ever runs on goodwill.
Ledger over balances
Every movement of value writes append-only, double-entry records. Balances are derived, never overwritten — so the platform can always prove what happened, and when.
A deterministic trade engine
Trades move through an explicit state machine. No arbitrary jumps, no client-driven state, no ambiguity about who owes what at any moment.
Risk scoring before the fact
Account, device, velocity and behavioural signals drive graduated responses — from silent allow, to step-up verification, to manual review — configured without shipping code.
Evidence-grade trade chat
Every trade carries its own conversation with system-generated events and permitted evidence, giving moderators a complete, tamper-evident narrative.
Reputation that compounds
Completion rate, response time, volume and account age build portable trader standing — and unlock the merchant tier that makes markets liquid.
Implementation detail — custody design, risk-rule logic, pricing models and corridor strategy — is deliberately not published here. Those are shared with serious counterparties under NDA.
Built for the trader, not the speculator
Trust should feel invisible. When it is, people build businesses on it.
CutOut’s design starts with the person making the trade: a merchant settling stock, a freelancer invoicing abroad, a family sending value home. The technology is serious; the experience should feel as simple and safe as a message to someone you know.
Business model
Revenue starts at trade one, not at scale.
Every completed trade is a monetised event. Fees are configurable per corridor, per asset and per method — and always disclosed to the user before confirmation.
Illustrative order preview
- Trade amount
- 150,000.00
- Platform fee
- shown pre-confirmation
- Network fee
- shown pre-confirmation
- Total
- No surprises, ever
Trading fee
A transparent, pre-disclosed maker/taker fee on completed trades.
Withdrawal & network fees
Configurable spread over on-chain cost, shown before confirmation.
Merchant program
Higher limits, featured placement and analytics for high-trust market makers.
Corridor partnerships
Payment-method and liquidity partnerships as verified corridors mature.
Roadmap
A build order, not a wish list.
Phase 1 — Foundation
Prove the trade loop
- Accounts, 2FA, verification tiers
- Offer engine & marketplace
- Trade state machine + escrow
- Double-entry ledger & wallets
- Trade chat, disputes, ratings
- Admin, risk controls, audit logs
Phase 2 — Depth
Make the market liquid
- Merchant program & advanced pricing
- Additional payment methods & corridors
- Native mobile applications
- Automated dispute tooling
- Referral & affiliate growth loops
- Public API access
Phase 3 — Scale
Become the rail
- Instant swaps
- Cross-platform liquidity
- Institutional & OTC desks
- Merchant APIs
- Multi-region infrastructure
- Regulated adjacent products
Launch discipline
We treat regulation as launch-blocking, not a later feature.
Jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction legal review
Licensing and registration before real money
KYC/AML program with tiered verification
Sanctions screening & transaction monitoring
Custody and wallet security architecture
Independent security audit & penetration testing
Incident response and consumer protection
Data protection and privacy program
Get involved
The trust layer gets built once. Be early to it.
Investors
A regulated-by-design marketplace in corridors global exchanges won't serve, with revenue on day one of the trade loop.
Traders & merchants
Escrow, reputation and real dispute resolution — so your volume compounds instead of resetting after every bad counterparty.
Collaborators
Payments, compliance, security and engineering people who want to build financial infrastructure that holds up under audit.
Ask for the deck. We'll show you the parts that aren't on this page.
Detailed architecture, unit economics, corridor strategy and the security model are shared directly with investors, partners and operators.