Inside Anubis Market: how the platform actually works
A long-form look at the operational mechanics of Anubis Market: account flow, escrow routing, dispute resolution, and the parts of the storefront that buyers do not see.
From the outside, Anubis Market looks like a marketplace. You browse, you order, you wait, you confirm receipt. The platform charges the vendor a percentage and routes you a tracking code. This is a simplification of what actually happens, and the simplification matters because the parts you do not see are the parts that protect you when something goes sideways.
Account creation and escrow assignment
When you create an account on Anubis, the platform generates a new Monero subaddress for your account, a new multisig key for orders you will place, and an internal account record with a feedback weight that starts at neutral. The first deposit posts within roughly ten minutes of broadcast. From the moment your balance is non-zero, you are scoped for orders.
Order placement triggers escrow assignment. The platform creates a 2-of-3 multisig contract for the order with three keys: yours, the vendor's, and the platform's. Funds move from your account balance into the multisig contract on order placement; they sit there until the order resolves. The vendor sees the order in their queue and ships against it.
Order resolution, in normal flow
Most orders resolve normally. You receive the package, you click confirm receipt, your key signs to release. The vendor's key has already pre-signed; your signature releases the contract and the funds move to the vendor's account balance. Total platform-side time for normal-flow resolution is under a minute. The platform's third key never enters the picture.
Order resolution, in dispute flow
Some orders go sideways. The package never arrives, or arrives in a state that does not match the listing. Either party can open a dispute from the order page. The platform freezes the multisig contract, routes the ticket to the dispute panel, and the panel takes ownership of the third key for arbitration purposes.
The panel reads buyer evidence and vendor counter-evidence. The published rule classes (item-not-as-described, partial-shipment, non-shipment, vendor-error, buyer-error) determine the weighting. The panel signs to release funds in proportion to the ruling. The buyer and vendor each get a notification with the panel's reasoning. The vendor's reputation score updates based on the outcome.
Why this matters for buyers
The protective property of the architecture is concentrated in one place: the platform cannot run with the funds. Even in an extreme scenario where the platform goes hostile, it cannot move funds out of the multisig contract without one other key signing. A buyer-vendor pair can settle without the platform; the platform alone cannot settle. This is the structural feature that makes Anubis fundamentally different from the single-sig markets it has displaced.